THE    STANDARD    OF 

USAGE    IN    ENGLISH 


BY 

THOMAS    R.    LOUNSBURY 

Emeritus  Professor  of  English 
in  Yale  University 


NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

HARPER  6-  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

1908 


Copyright,  1907,  1908,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 


All  rights  reserved. 
Published  April,  1908. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  Is  English  Becoming  Corrupt?    ...  i 

II.  The  Standard  of  Usage        8i 

III.  The    Linguistic    Authority    of    Great 

Writers loi 

IV.  Uncertainties  of  Usage 121 

V.  School-mastering  the  Speech  .     .     .     .  143 

VI.  I   Artificial  Usage 163 

VII.  On  the  Hostility  to  Certain  Words     .  193 

VIII.  To  and  the  Infinitive 240 

IX.  Had    Liefer,    Had    Rather,    and    Had 

Better,  with  the  Infinitive      .     .  269 

Index 301 


173472 


yti^C^i^^ 


PREFACE 

THE  essays  which  -are  contained  in  this 
volume  appeared  originally  at  irregular 
intervals  as  articles  in  Harper's  Magazine.  In 
several  instances  much  of  the  matter  prepared 
had  necessarily  to  be  discarded  from  the  limited 
pages  of  a  periodical.  In  the  reprint  of  these 
articles  in  book  form,  not  only  have  the  omitted 
portions  been  restored,  but  many  new  disputed 
points  of  usage  have  been  taken  up,  and  many 
new  illustrations  have  been  added  to  those  orig- 
inally given. 

The  leading  idea  which  the  whole  series  of 
essays  is  designed  to  illustrate  and  enforce  is 
contained  in  the  second  one.  To  bring  this 
out  distinctly  these  articles  are  now  placed  here 
in  an  order  entirely  different  from  that  in  which 
they  were  originally  published.  Not  only  have 
they  been  to  some  extent  rewritten,  but  they 
have  been  rearranged  so  as  to  present,  as  far  as 
possible,  a  continuous  and  logical  sequence  of 
thought.     Though  each  of  them  is  in  one  sense 


PREFACE 

entirely  independent  of  the  others,  all  of  them 
have  for  their  common  aim  the  maintenance  of 
the  doctrine  that  the  best,  and  indeed  the  only 
proper,  usage  is  the  usage  of  the  best,  and  that 
any  rules  or  injunctions  not  based  upon  the 
practice  of  the  best  speakers  and  writers  nei- 
ther require  nor  deserve  attention,  no  matter 
how  loudly  they  are  proclaimed  or  how  gen- 
erally taught.  Those  who  take  the  trouble  to 
read  the  work  through  will  discover  that  the 
essays  following  the  second  either  develop  or 
modify  the  operation  of  the  principles  laid 
down  in  it,  or  embody  the  results  of  investi- 
gation based  upon  these  principles.  Even  the 
first  essay,  which  seems  most  remote  from  the 
common  subject,  is  little  more  than  a  prelimi- 
nary to  the  doctrine  set  forth  in  the  one  it  pre- 
cedes. I  have,  therefore,  given  the  whole  work 
the  title  of  the  second  essay. 

This  treatise,  like  all  productions  of  a  similar 
character,  has  necessitated  the  consideration 
of  no  small  number  of  disputed  points  of  usage. 
But  the  discussion  of  these  has  not  been  the 
main  object  of  its  preparation.  This  has  been 
the  establishment  of  certain  general  principles, 
by  the  observance  of  which  the  reader,  if  willing 
to  put  forth  the  requisite  exertion,  will  be  en- 
abled to  test  for  himself  the  correctness  of  the 
vi 


PREFACE 

injunctions  imposed  upon  him,  or  sought  to  be 
imposed,  by  those,  including  myself,  who  set  out 
to  decide  upon  propriety  of  usage.  The  aim 
throughout  has  been  to  make  as  clear  as  pos- 
sible what  seem  to  me  the  only  rational  and 
safe  grounds  upon  which  to  base  any  trustworthy 
conclusions  as  to  the  propriety  or  impropriety  of 
words  and  phrases  and  constructions,  indepen- 
dent of  the  personal  likes  and  dislikes  in  which  all 
of  us  share.  This  means,  above  all,  the  substitu- 
tion of  the  authority  of  the  great  writers  of  our 
speech  for  the  confident  assertions  of  the  more  or 
less  imperfectly  trained  and  even  more  imper- 
fectly informed  persons  who  profess  to  show  us 
what  we  are  to  do  and  what  we  are  to  refrain 
from  doing.  It  further  involves  the  acceptance 
of  the  doctrine  that  rules  of  grammar  are  of  no 
value  save  as  they  are  based  upon  the  practice 
of  these  great  writers,  and  that  the  grammarian 
who  does  not  make  such  practice  his  guide  pro- 
claims by  that  one  fact  his  own  incompetence 
and  the  worthlessness  of  the  results  he  reaches. 
In  laying,  as  I  have  done,  constant  stress 
upon  these  points,  I  have  justly  made  myself 
liable  to  the  charge  of  insisting  upon  common- 
places, of  announcing  as  if  it  were  something 
novel  the  principle  determining  the  correct- 
ness of  usage  which  has  been  accepted  every- 
vii 


PREFACE 

where  from  the  earliest  times,  and  that  as  a 
consequence  I  have  done  no  more  than  give 
renewed  utterance  to  ideas  which  have  been  ex- 
pressed, and  better  expressed,  a  thousand  times 
before.  The  charge  is  undeniably  true.  There 
is  nothing  new  in  the  views  here  set  forth.  They 
are  precisely  the  same  as  those  proclaimed  by 
all  the  great  authorities  who  from  remotest  an- 
tiquity have  treated  this  subject.  None  the 
less  has  it  seemed  to  me  worth  while  to  call 
attention  to  these  principles;  for,  however  well 
accepted  in  theory,  they  are  constantly  disre- 
garded in  the  current  criticisms  of  usage. 

They  are  even  more  than  disregarded.  At 
times,  indeed,  they  have  been  actually  denied, 
and  denied,  too,  in  works  which  are  spoken  of 
by  some  as  authoritative.  However  common- 
place, therefore,  these  principles  may  seem  to 
scholars,  they  are  anything  but  commonplace  to 
large  numbers  who  accept  meekly  and  blindly 
pronouncements  based  not  only  upon  a  total 
disregard  of  them,  but  sometimes  proclaimed 
in  actual  defiance  of  them.  It  is  no  uncommon 
statement  that  there  are  usages  which  can  be 
justified  by  no  consensus  of  authorities,  how- 
ever commanding  these  may  be.  This  carries 
to  the  point  of  absurdity  the  doctrine  opposed 
to  that  herein  set  forth.  It  is  giving  to  the 
viii 


PREFACE 

limited  knowledge  and  less  taste  and  judg- 
ment of  the  verbal  critic  the  power  to  decide 
upon  the  correctness  of  the  usage  of  the  great 
writers,  from  whose  practice  alone  we  derive 
our  conception  of  what  correctness  is.  While, 
therefore,  there  is  nothing  really  novel  in  the 
views  here  expressed,  the  contrary  views  have 
been  so  frequently  maintained  in  recent  times 
that  it  seems  more  than  worth  while  to  re- 
affirm the  ancient  principles.  They  need  to  be 
restated  and  acted  upon,  if  we  are  ever  to  be 
rescued  from  the  slough  of  linguistic  anarchy  in 
which  we  are  now  largely  floundering.  That 
result,  indeed,  can  never  be  fully  secured  until 
a  systematic  and  thorough  examination  of  the 
usage  of  the  best  writers  has  been  made,  so  as 
to  bring  order  out  of  chaos,  and  substitute  in 
numerous  cases  certainty  for  the  present  doubt- 
fulness. 

One  thing  further  I  may  be  permitted  to 
say.  In  many  of  the  criticisms  to  which  these 
articles  were  subjected  as  they  appeared,  the 
position  of  the  author  has  been  misjudged.  In 
pointing  out  tendencies  that  are  manitesting 
themselves  in  the  present  speech  or  changes  that 
are  going  on,  I  have  certainly  striven  to  act  as 
an  historian  and  not  as  an  advocate.  When 
expressions  have  been  ignorantly  condemned  be- 
ix 


PREFACE 

cause  they  have  been  misunderstood,  I  have  felt 
no  hesitation  in  pointing  out  the  error  which  un- 
derlay the  censure.  In  defending  the  purity  of 
certain  long-established  idioms  against  the  at- 
tack of  those  who  have  found  fault  with  them 
without  knowing  anything  whatever  of  their  ori- 
gin, nature,  or  history,  one  at  times  can  hardly 
help  giving  very  decided  expression  to  his  opin- 
ions. But  in  the  treatment  of  many  of  the  dis- 
puted questions  of  usage,  all  that  has  been  done 
is  to  state  the  facts  as  they  actually  are  and  to 
indicate,  so  far  as  it  can  be  done,  the  direction  in 
which  the  language  is  moving.  To  point  out 
the  fallacy  of  objections  raised  against  par- 
ticular usages  does  npt  imply  the  advocacy  of 
their  employment.  (My  whole  aim  has  been  on 
the  one  hand  to  make  the  reader  acquainted  with 
the  principles  regulating  correctness  of  usage 
in  general,  and  with  the  proper  methods  of 
their  application;  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  case 
of  particular  usages  under  consideration,  to  put 
him  in  the  possession  of  facts  and  arguments 
sufficient  to  enable  him  to  decide  for  himself 
upon  the  propriety  of  their  employment.  In 
either  case  I  may  not  have  succeeded  in  carrying 
out  my  intentions ;  but  these  were  the  intentions 
I  aimed  to  carry  out. 


THE   STANDARD   OF   USAGE   IN   ENGLISH 


^     O^  THE  A 

UNIV'TRSITY  I 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 
IN    ENGLISH 

I 

IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING   CORRUPT? 


NO  one  who  is  interested  in  the  subject  of 
language  can  have  failed  to  be  struck 
with  the  prevalence  of  complaints  about  the 
corruption  which  is  overtaking  our  ov/n  speech. 
The  subject  comes  up  for  consideration  con- 
stantly. Reference  to  it  turns  up  not  infre- 
quently in  books  :  discussion  of  it  forms  the 
staple  of  articles  contributed  to  magazines, 
and  of  numerous  letters  written  to  newspapers. 
Lists  of  objectionable  words  and  phrases  and 
constructions  are  carefully  drawn  up.  The  fre- 
quency of  their  use  is  made  the  subject  some- 
times of  reprobation,  sometimes  of  lamentation. 
There  exists,  it  appears,  a  class  of  persons  who, 
I 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

either  through  ignorance  or  indifference,  or  often 
through  both  combined,  are  doing  all  in  their 
power  to  corrupt  the  English  tongue.  Their 
efforts  are  too  largely  successful.  There  is  ac- 
cordingly no  salvation  for  the  speech  unless 
heroic  measures  are  taken  to  guard  it  from  the 
perils  threatening  its  purity.  Sleepless  vigilance 
is  required.  Grammatical  sentinels  must  always 
be  on  the  watch-towers,  ready  to  raise  the  cry  of 
warning  or  alarm  the  moment  they  discern  the 
approach  of  the  least  of  these  linguistic  foes. 

About  this  state  of  things,  it  is  to  be  added, 
there  is  nothing  new.  There  seems  to  have 
been  in  every  period  of  the  past,  as  there  is  now, 
a  distinct  apprehension  in  the  minds  of  very 
many  worthy  persons  that  the  English  tongue  is 
always  in  the  condition  of  approaching  collapse, 
and  that  arduous  efforts  must  be  put  forth,  and 
put  forth  persistently,  in  order  to  save  it  from 
destruction.  The  study  of  our  literature — per- 
haps it  would  be  better  to  say  the  study  of 
views  about  our  literature — shows  that  from 
an  early  period  there  has  existed  a  vague  fear 
that  the  language  is  on  the  road  to  ruin.  Signs 
are  remarked  that  indicate  plainly  to  the  un- 
happy observer  that  it  is  moving  unmistakably 
on  the  downward  path.  These  foretellers  of 
calamity  we  have  always  had  with  us;  it  is  in 

2 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

every  way  probable  that  we  shall  always  have 
them.  A  certain  uniformity  is  to  be  found  in 
the  attitude  they  exhibit  towards  the  speech, 
no  matter  what  period  it  is  to  which  they  belong. 
They  keep  in  view — at  least  they  profess  to  keep 
in  view — the  duty  of  refining  and  purifying  it. 
They  are  filled  with  profoundest  anxiety  for  its 
future.  They  view  with  concern  or  with  alarm 
its  decline.  An  undertone  of  melancholy,  in- 
deed, pervades  most  of  the  utterances  of  those 
who  devote  themselves  to  the  care  of  the  lan- 
guage. Though  precautions  of  every  sort  may 
be  taken,  it  is  implied  that  in  all  probability 
they  will  turn  out  to  be  ineffectual. 

Now  and  then  the  view  has  been  expressed 
that  the  golden  age  of  the  speech  is  in  the 
present,  though  it  is  almost  invariably  accom- 
panied with  the  assertion  that  it  has  already 
begun  to  degenerate.  But  this  is  far  from 
being  the  opinion  usually  held.  There  is  one 
particular,  indeed,  in  which  the  prophets  of 
woe  bear  to  one  another  the  closest  resemblance 
in  the  lamentations  to  which  they  give  utter- 
ance. They  are  always  pointing  to  the  past  with 
pride.  In  some  preceding  period,  frequently 
not  very  remote,  they  tell  us  that  the  language 
was  spoken  and  written  with  the  greatest 
purity.  It  had  then  attained  the  acme  of  per- 
3 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

fection  at  which  it  is  capable  of  arriving.  But 
since  that  happy  time  it  has  been  degenerating. 
The  old  unpolluted  speech  is  gone  or  at  any 
rate  is  going.  Corruptions  of  all  kinds  are  not 
merely  stealing  in,  they  are  pouring  in  with  the 
violence  of  a  tidal  wave.  Slang,  unnecessary 
words,  ungrammatical  locutions,  phrases  bor- 
rowed from  foreign  tongues,  especially  from  the 
French,  replace  and  drive  out  the  genuine  vernac- 
ular. Slipshod  methods  of  expression  abound 
in  the  speech  of  the  majority,  and  creep  unob- 
served into  the  writings  of  good  authors.  On 
every  side  the  outlook  is  dreary  beyond  ex- 
pression. 

There  was  a  certain  excuse  for  the  utterance, 
in  the  past,  of  these  doleful  forebodings.  The 
nature  of  language  and  of  the  influences  that 
operate  upon  it  was  then  but  little  under- 
stood. Not,  indeed,  until  a  late  period  has  the 
radical  error  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  these 
beliefs  been  recognized  clearly;  by  vast  num- 
bers it  is  still  not  recognized  at  all,  or,  if  so, 
very  dimly.  For  the  anxiety  entertained  about 
the  speech  in  previous  centuries  there  is  there- 
fore explanation,  even  if  it  does  not  amount 
to  justification.  Men  knew  nothing  of  the  his- 
torical development  of  the  words  and  grammat- 
ical forms  they  were  in  the  habit  of  using. 
4 


iS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

They  had  not  the  slightest  conception  out  of 
what  impurity  had  sprung  much  of  the  vaunted 
purity  in  which  they  rejoiced.  To  them  the 
language  seemed  a  sort  of  intellectual  machine 
which  had  come  into  their  possession  with  all  its 
parts  finished  and  elaborated.  They  were  con- 
sequently solicitous  that  nothing  should  be 
brought  in  to  impair  its  imagined  perfection; 
they  lived  in  perpetual  dread  of  the  agencies 
that  might  threaten  its  integrity. 

There  was  one  aim  in  particular  held  before 
the  eyes  of  the  men  of  the  past.  This  was  to 
render  the  language  what  they  called  fixed. 
If  that  were  once  accomplished,  the  speech 
would  undergo  no  further  change,  save  on  an 
extremely  limited  scale  and  in  certain  well- 
defined  directions.  The  tide  of  corruptions, 
real  or  assumed,  would  thus  be  permanently 
stayed.  A  belief  of  this  sort  has  been  widely 
cherished  in  every  age  and  in  every  country 
possessed  of  a  literature.  It  has  naturally 
exercised  the  minds  of  many  of  those  speaking 
our  own  tongue.  That  men  of  letters  should 
indulge  in  it  is  not  particularly  surprising. 
However  much  they  may  deal  with  language 
as  an  instrument  of  expression,  they  have  in 
general  little  knowledge  of  its  history  or  of  the 
diverse  influences  that  are  always  operating 
5 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

Upon  it  and  modifying  its  character.  But  it 
shows  how  thoroughly  this  idea  had  permeated 
the  minds  of  all  that  we  find  it  proclaimed  by 
a  scholar  of  the  intellectual  stature  of  Bentley. 
"It  would  be  no  difficult  contrivance,"  he  wrote: 
"if  the  public  had  any  regard  to  it,  to  make 
the  English  tongue  immutable,  unless  hereafter 
some  foreign  nation  overrun  and  invade  us."^ 

But  it  is  perhaps  hopeless  to  expect  that  any 
man,  however  eminent,  shall  be  in  most  things 
much  in  advance  of  his  age.  Bentley,  great 
scholar  as  he  was,  shared  to  its  full  extent  in 
the  special  ignorance,  then  prevalent,  of  the 
English  tongue  and  of  its  history.  Nor  in  his 
general  linguistic  views  was  he  superior  to  his 
contemporaries.  In  the  very  passage  contain- 
ing the  quotation  just  given,  he  spoke  gravely 
of  the  Hebrew  as  the  primitive  language  of 
mankind.  He  further  asserted  that  it  under- 
went no  change  from  the  creation  to  the  time 
of  the  Babylonian  captivity — that  is,  according 
to  the  then  received  reckoning,  about  three 
thousand  years.  It  is  not  reasonable  to  expect 
that  a  man  should  be  more  accurate  in  his 
conclusions  than  he  is  in  his  facts.  It  will 
create  no  surprise,  therefore,  to  find  that  Bent- 

^ Bentley,  Dissertation  upon  Phalaris,  vol.  ii.,  p.  ii. 
London,  1836-38. 

6 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

ley  could  see  no  reason  why  English,  too,  hav- 
ing been  glutted  with  Latin  words  to  its  full 
capacity  and  needing  no  further  additions, 
should  not  continue  unchanged  for  the  rest 
of  its  existence.^  Even  later.  Dr.  Johnson,  in 
the  Plan  of  his  Dictionary,  issued  in  1747,  de- 
clared that  one  end  of  his  undertaking  was 
"to  fix  the  English  language."  But  a  man 
could  not  compile  a  vocabulary  of  the  tongue 
without  learning  something  of  the  nature  of 
speech.  By  the  time  he  finished  his  work,  he 
had  been  cured  of  this  particular  error. 

It  seemed  impossible  for  most  men  of  the 
past — the  impossibility  continues  for  some  men 
of  the  present — to  comprehend  the  elementary 
principle  that  in  order  to  have  a  language  be- 
come fixed,  it  is  first  necessary  that  those  who 
speak  it  should  become  dead — dead  at  least 
intellectually,  if  not  physically.  Then,  indeed, 
it  can  undergo  no  change,  for  there  is  no  one  to 
change  it.  But  so  long  as  it  lives  in  the. mouths 
of  men,  and  not  merely  in  the  pages  of  books, 
it  must  constantly  introduce  new  words  and 
phrases  to  express  the  new  facts  which  have 
been  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  those  who 
speak  it,   the   new  inventions   and    discoveries 

^  Bentley,  Dissertation  upon  Phalaris,  vol.  ii.,  p.  13. 
London,  1836-38. 

7 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

which  they  have  made,  the  jiew  ideas  and  feel- 
ings which  they  have  come  to  entertain.  Yet 
the  beHef  that  the  vocabulary  of  any  particular 
time  can  meet  the  requirements  of  the  users  of 
speech  for  all  time  is  a  fallacy  that  is  brought 
to  our  attention  by  having  been  frequently 
proclaimed  and  occasionally  acted  upon  by 
men  of  eminence.  The  well-known  resolution 
of  Fox  to  admit  no  word  into  his  History  of 
the  Reign  of  James  II.  that  did  not  have  the 
authority  of  Dryden  is  a  signal  example  of 
this  particular  absurdity.  Even  Dr.  Johnson, 
whose  work  on  his  Dictionary  gradually  im- 
paired his  faith  in  many  popular  linguistic 
delusions,  continued  to  entertain  or  at  least 
to  express  a  belief  not  essentially  dissimilar. 
According  to  his  view,  a  speech  adequate  to  all 
the  purposes  of  use  and  elegance  might  be  formed 
from  the  authors  who  sprang  up  in  the  time 
of  Elizabeth.  "If,"  said  he,  **the  language  of 
theology  were  extracted  from  Hooker  and  the 
translation  of  the  Bible;  the  terms  of  natural 
knowledge  from  Bacon;  the  phrases  of  policy, 
war,  and  navigation  from  Raleigh;  the  dialect 
of  poetry  and  fiction  from  Spenser  and  Sidney; 
and  the  diction  of  common  life  from  Shakespeare, 
few  ideas  would  be  lost  to  mankind  for  want  of 
EngHsh  words  in  which  they  might  be  ex- 
8 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

pressed."^  Whatever  was  Johnson's  real  be- 
lief as  to  what  could  he  drawn  from  the  sources 
he  enumerated,  his  practice  was  far  from  con- 
forming to  it.  To  express  his  own  ideas  he 
resorted  to  words  which  had  never  been  used 
by  any  author  of  the  time  he  specified,  for  the 
all-sufficient  reason  that  they  did  not  then  exist. 
If  views  such  as  these  could  be  put  forth  by 
scholars  like  Bentley  and  Johnson,  who  pre- 
sumably studied  language  as  a  science,  nothing 
more  rational  was  to  be  expected  from  men  of 
letters  who  were  familiar  with  it  merely  as  an 
instrument  of  expression.  The  desirability  of 
fixing  the  speech  was  not  only  widely  held,  but 
earnestly  proclaimed.  It  was  not  merely  held 
and  proclaimed,  too,  by  some  of  the  best  and 
wisest  who  wrote  in  the  English  tongue,  but  by 
those  of  similar  character  who  wrote  in  the  vari- 
ious  cultivated  tongues  of  Continental  Europe. 
It  is,  however,  our  language  alone  that  concerns 
us  here.  The  experience  of  the  past  furnishes 
a  most  significant  corrective  to  those  who  look 
upon  the  indifference  manifested  by  the  public 
to  their  warnings  and  to  the  awful  examples 
they  furnish  as  infallible  proof  of  the  increasing 
degeneracy  of  the  speech.     It  would  save  them 

*  Preface  to  the  English  Dictionary. 
9 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

hours  of  unnecessary  misery  were  they  to  make 
themselves  acquainted  with  the  views  of  the 
prominent  men  of  former  times,  who  felt  as 
did  they  and  talked  as  foolishl}^ 

Of  beliefs  of  the  sort  jiist  indicated,  Dean 
Swift  is  in  our  literature  far  the  most  eminent 
representative.  The  desire  for  what  he  deemed 
the  purity  of  the  language  amounted  with  him 
almost  to  a  passion.  To  securing  it  he  devoted 
no  small  share  of  thought  and  attention.  One 
of  his  earliest  utterances  upon  the  subject — 
perhaps  his  earliest — appeared  in  the  Tatler  of 
September  28,  17 10.  In  it  he  deplored  the 
general  ignorance  and  want  of  taste  exhibited 
by  the  writers  of  the  age.  These  were  bring- 
ing about  the  steady  corruption  of  the  English 
tongue.  Unless  some  timely  remedy  was  found, 
he  declared  that  the  language  would  suffer  more 
by  the  false  refinements  of  the  twenty  years 
w^hich  had  just  passed  than  it  had  been  im- 
proved in  the  foregoing  hundred.  If  other 
means  failed,  he  wished  the  editor  of  the  Tatler 
to  make  an  Index  Expurgatorius  in  order  to  ex- 
punge all  words  and  phrases  ofEensive  to  good 
sense,  and  to  condemn  the  barbarous  muti- 
lations of  words  and  syllables  then  going  on. 
Swift's  essay  was  largely  taken  up  with  the 
exemplification  of  these  asserted  barbarisms 
10 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

which  had  been  steadily  creeping  into  and  cor- 
rupting the  speech. 

They  were  of  three  kinds.  The  first  were 
abbreviations,  in  which  only  the  first  part  of  a 
word  was  used.  The  result  was  to  add  a  further 
number  of  monosyllables  to  a  language  already 
overloaded  with  them.  As  illustrations  of  these 
he  gave  phiz  for  phisiognomy,  hyp  for  hypo- 
choftdria,  mob  for  mobile,  poz  for  positive,  and  rep 
for  reputation.  Incog  for  incognito,  and  plenipo 
for  plenipotentiary,  he  expected  to  see  still 
further  docked  into  inc  and  plen.  Swift  was  of 
opinion  that  the  abundance  of  monosyllables  is 
the  disgrace  of  our  language.  Accordingly,  it 
might  be  supposed  that  he  would  look  with 
favor  upon  the  polysyllables  which,  according 
to  his  account,  the  war  then  going  on  —  that 
of  the  Spanish  Succession  —  was  bringing  into 
general  use.  But  no  one  who  has  once  taken 
the  language  under  his  care  can  ever  again  be 
really  happy.  That  way  misery  lies.  To  these 
long  Vy^ords  Swift  exhibited  the  same  hostile  front 
which  he  did  to  the  short  ones.  Among  them  he 
specifically  mentioned  speculations,  operations, 
preliminaries,  ambassadors,  palisadoes,  com- 
munication, circumvallation,  battalions.  These, 
he  thought,  would  never  be  able  to  live  many 
more  campaigns,  though,  even  in  the  special 
ti 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

sense  of  them  which  he  had  in  mind,  most  of 
them  had  been  in  existence  before  he  was  born. 

Swift's  third  class  embraced  a  number  of 
words  ** invented,"  he  said,  *'by  certain  pretty 
fellows,  such  as  banter,  bamboozle,  country  put, 
and  kidney.*'  Some  of  these  were  struggling  for 
the  vogue;  others  were  now  in  possession  of  it. 
"I  have  done  my  utmost,"  he  added,  **for  some 
years  past  to  stop  the  progress  of  mobb  and 
banter,  but  have  been  plainly  borne  down  by 
numbers  and  betrayed  by  those  who  promised 
to  assist  me."  Of  none  of  these  did  his  opposi- 
tion bring  about  then  the  disuse. 

Of  two  of  the  various  words  he  specifically 
mentioned  Swift's  dislike  was  peculiarly  intense. 
In  his  Tale  of  a  Tub  he  ascribed  the  employ- 
ment of  the  verb  banter  to  those  who  have 
no  share  of  wit  or  humor,  but  abound  in  pride, 
pedantry,  and  ill-manners.  "This  polite  word 
of  theirs,"  he  said,  "was  first  borrowed  from 
the  bullies  in  Whitefriars;  then  fell  among  the 
footmen ;  and  at  last  retired  to  the  pedants,  by 
whom  it  is  applied  as  properly  to  the  pro- 
duction of  wit  as  if  I  should  apply  it  to  Sir 
Isaac  Newton's  mathematics."  ^  It  hardly  needs 
to  be  said  that  Swift's  account  of  the  history 

*  Tale  of  a  Tub.    An  apology. 

12 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

of  the  word  is  of  no  more  accuracy  than  his 
hostility  towards  it  was  of  importance.  Banter 
had,  indeed,  come  into  the  language  sometime 
during  the  half -century  before  he  wrote.  As 
it  supplied  a  sense  no  other  word  expressed 
so  aptly,  it  continued  to  prevail.  Swift's  cen- 
sure of  it  had  not  the  slightest  influence  upon 
its  fortunes. 

Swift  followed  up  this  attack  in  17 12  by  a 
public  Letter  addressed  to  the  Earl  of  Oxford, 
the  Lord  High  Treasurer.  In  it  was  contained 
a  proposition  for  correcting,  improving,  and  as- 
certaining the  English  tongue.  It  is  a  treatise 
which  ought  to  be  read  by  the  whole  generation 
of  those  of  our  time  who  spend  anxious  days  and 
sit  up  nights  in  order  to  preserve  the  purity  of 
the  speech.  Nowhere  can  a  greater  discrep- 
ancy be  found  between  predictions  of  what  is 
going  to  take  place  and  what  has  actually 
taken  place.  In  this  Letter  we  are  told  that 
the  English  language  is  extremely  imperfect. 
The  improvements  made  in  it  are  by  no  means 
in  proportion  to  its  daily  corruptions.  Those 
who  have  pretended  to  polish  and  refine  it  have 
chiefly  multiplied  abuses  and  absurdities.  Fur- 
thermore, it — that  is,  the  tongue  itself,  not  those 
who  speak  it — offends  against  every  part  of 
grammar.  This  is  a  course  of  conduct  so  sin- 
13 


THE   STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

gular,  not  to  say  unseemly,  on  the  part  of  a 
speech,  that  it  must  always  be  a  source  of  regret 
that  Swift  did  not  specify  some  of  the  gram- 
matical crimes  of  which  it  is  guilty.  It  is,  how- 
ever, an  assertion  which  has  not  unfrequently 
been  repeated  after  him,  though  with  the  same 
scrupulous  neglect  of  illustrative  examples. 

The  period  which  Swift  selected  as  the  one  in 
which  English  received  most  refinement  w^as 
that  dating  from  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  and  ending  with  the  breaking 
out  of  the  civil  war  in  1642.  With  that  year 
began  degeneracy.  Corruption  came  in  from 
the  fanatics  of  the  commonwealth.  This  had 
been  succeeded  by  corruption  from  the  fine 
gentlemen  of  the  court.  From  both  quarters 
it  had  made  its  way  into  the  writings  of  the  best 
authors.  Affected  phrases,  new  conceited  terms 
had  been  transferred  from  the  language  of  high 
life  into  the  language  of  plays,  and  from  them 
had  been  taken  up  by  men  of  wit  and  learning. 
The  poets  also  had  introduced  the  barbarous 
custom  of  abbreviating  words,  thereby  forming 
harsh,  inharmonious  sounds  that  nothing  but 
a  northern  ear  could  endure.  These  had  passed 
from  verse  into  prose.  "What  does  your  Lord- 
ship think,"  Swift  asked,  with  pain,  "of  the 
words  drudg'd,  disturbed,  rebuk't,  fledg'd,  and  a 
14 


IS    ENGLISH   BECOMING   CORRUPT? 

thousand  others  everywhere  to  be  met  ?  Where 
by  leaving  out  a  vowel  to  save  a  syllable,  we 
form  so  jarring  a  sound  and  so  difficult  to  utter 
that  I  have  often  wondered  how  it  could  ever 
obtain." 

Like  other  men  before  and  since,  Swift  had 
his  method  of  dealing  with  the  evils  he  had  dis- 
covered. This  was  essentially  the  project  of  an 
academy,  though  in  his  Letter  he  did  not  put 
it  forth  under  that  specific  name.  But  so  he 
described  it  in  his  Journal  to  Stella.  To  her  he 
wrote  that  the  essay  was  about  "forming  a 
society  or  academy  to  correct  and  fix  the  English 
language."  His  idea  was  that  a  choice  should 
be  made  of  the  persons  best  qualified  for  the 
end  in  view.  These  should  meet  together  and 
proceed  to  make  such  alterations  in  the  speech 
as  they  thought  requisite.  They  should  then 
devise  a  method  of  ascertaining  and  fixing  it 
forever.  If  this  were  not  done,  if  things  went 
on  at  the  rate  they  had  been  going,  nobody 
would  be  read  with  pleasure  much  longer  than 
a  few  years,  and  in  course  of  time  could  hard- 
ly be  understood  without  an  interpreter.  He 
could  further  promise  the  prime  -  minister  that 
two  hundred  years  hence  some  painful  compiler, 
w^ho  had  been  studying  the  language  of  Queen 
Anne's  time,  would  be  able  to  pick  out  and 
15 


/ 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

transfer  into  his  new  history,  written  in  the 
language  of  his  own  time,  that  Robert,  Earl  of 
Oxford,  a  very  wise  and  excellent  man  of  the 
former  period,  had  saved  his  country.  The 
fuller  account,  however,  of  that  statesman's  life, 
acts,  and  character,  given  by  contemporary 
writers  like  Swift  himself,  would  be  dropped 
because  of  the  antiquated  style  and  manner  in 
which  they  were  delivered. 

The  appeal  was  ineffectual.  In  spite  of  it  no 
body  of  competent  persons  was  selected  by  the 
prime  -  minister  to  take  charge  of  the  English 
tongue.  The  Earl  of  Oxford  was  in  the  first 
place  very  far  from  being  a  Richelieu.  But 
it  was  no  long  while  before  he  had  all  he  could 
do  to  keep  his  own  head  on  his  shoulders.  In 
consequence  he  naturally  left  the  language  to 
look  out  for  itself.  It  seems  to  have  been 
amply  able  to  discharge  that  duty.  The  two 
hundred  years  specified  have  very  nearly  gone 
by  and  not  a  single  one  of  the  dire  predictions 
just  mentioned  has  been  fulfilled.  No  need 
has  been  found  of  resorting  to  the  aid  of  the 
painful  antiquary  to  decipher  the  writings  of  the 
time.  Every  word  of  Swift's  Letter  can  be 
understood  now  as  easily  as  it  was  on  the  day 
it  was  published.  But  his  failure  to  note  even 
in  his  own  age  any  sign  of  the  realization  of  his 
i6 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING   CORRUPT? 

dismal  forebodings  never  once  shook  his  faith 
in  their  correctness.  During  his  whole  life  he 
remained  faithful  to  the  views  here  expressed. 
In  the  introduction  to  his  Polite  Conversation, 
which  appeared  in  1738,  he  reiterated  the 
opinions  set  forth  in  his  Tatler  essay  of  nearly 
thirty  years  before.  His  hostility  to  mob  con- 
tinued to  the  very  end,  though  by  that  time  it 
had  established  itself  firmly  in  the  tongue. 
Walter  Scott  tells  us  of  an  old  lady  who  died  in 
1788,  and  who  was  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the 
dean.  She  used  to  say  that  the  greatest  scrape 
she  ever  got  into  with  him  was  owing  to  her 
employment  of  this  particular  word.  "Why 
do  you  say  that?"  he  exclaimed,  in  a  passion: 
"never  let  me  hear  you  say  that  again."  "Why, 
sir,"  she  asked,  "what  am  I  to  say?"  "The 
rabble,  to  be  sure,"  answered  he. 

Swift's  idea  of  the  proper  agency  to  keep  the 
English  tongue  pure  and  unspotted  from  the 
contaminations  of  a  careless  world  was,  as  we 
see,  the  foundation  of  an  academy  created  for 
that  specific  purpose.  This  was  somehow  to 
exercise  plenary  power  over  the  speech.  In 
particular  it  was  to  raise  an  effectual  barrier 
against  the  raving,  roaring  tide  of  corruptions 
which  is  always  threatening  to  ruin  the  language 
beyond  redemption.  This  regularly  recurring 
17 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

prescription  for  the  cure  of  our  linguistic  ills 
was  even  in  Swift's  own  time  no  new  one. 
Schemes  of  the  sort  had  been  in  the  air  during 
the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  the  first  Stuarts. 
Long  before  the  French  Academy  had  a  being 
the  establishment  of  an  English  one  had  been 
mooted.  But  the  projects  urged  had  never 
been  followed  by  any  result.  The  creation  of 
the  French  Academy  in  1635,  and  the  apparent 
success  it  met,  gave,  however,  distinct  impulse 
to  the  desire  to  found  one  essentially  similar  in 
England.  The  attempt  itself  never  went  fur- 
ther than  plans  and  projDosals.  Still  it  was 
an  idea  constantly  held  before  the  eyes  of  men 
as  something  in  all  ways  desirable  even  if  not 
feasible.  The  Earl  of  Roscommon  in  the  last 
years  of  his  short  life  was  deeply  interested  in  a 
project  of  the  kind.^  Dryden,  indeed,  is  said 
to  have  been  concerned  with  him  in  the  under- 
taking. This  may  or  may  not  be  true.  It  is 
certain,  however,  that  in  the  preface  to  one  of 
his  earliest  plays  he  expressed  a  desire  that 
an  organization  of  the  sort  indicated  should  be 
created.  He  said  that  he  had  sought  to  use 
the  speech  "as  near  as  he  could  distinguish  it 
from  the  tongue  of  pedants  or  that  of   affect - 

*  Dr.  Johnson,  Life  of  Roscommon. 
18 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

ed  travellers.  I  am  sorry,"  he  added,  *'that 
speaking  a  noble  language  as  we  do,  we  have 
not  a  certain  measure  of  it  as  they  have  in 
France,  where  they  have  an  academy  erected  for 
the  purpose  and  endowed  with  large  privileges 
by  the  present  king."^ 

In  truth,  from  the  time  of  the  Restoration  to 
the  present  day  there  have  never  been  lacking 
men  either  to  long  for  the  creation  of  an  au- 
thority to  regulate  our  speech  or  to  bcAvail  the 
lack  of  it.  They  hold  up  constantly  before  our 
eyes  the  example  of  France.  They  attribute 
to  the  body  created  by  Richelieu  benefits 
which  no  institution  of  the  sort  ever  had  the 
ability  to  confer  upon  a  language  and  never 
can  have.  Unquestionably  academies  are  very 
useful.  They  may  and  often  do  accomplish 
much  good.  But  the  regulation  of  speech  is 
something  outside  their  province  and  their 
powers.  The  utmost  they  can  do  is  to  exert  a 
slight  influence  upon  its  development;  occasion- 
ally to  create  an  eddy  in  the  stream  of  tendency. 
But  faith  in  their  wonder-working  influence  is 
implanted  in  the  hearts  of  many.  By  these 
they  are  regarded  as  a  sort  of  linguistic  hospital, 
equipped   with   physicians   and   supplied   with 

*  Preface  to  The  Rival  Ladies,  1664. 
19 


V 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

remedies  fitted  to  cure  all  the  ills  which  have 
been  brought  upon  a  tongue  by  the  ignorance 
or  heedlessness  of  its  iisers.  We  see  this  state 
of  mind  fully  exemplified  in  Swift.  Others  felt 
as  earnestly  as  he.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  he  was  at  that  time  at  all  pecul- 
iar in  his  sentiments.  There  were  many  who 
thought  as  did  he,  but  no  one  else  gave  to  his 
views  expression  so  unqualified. 

With  the  little  then  known  of  the  nature  of 
language,  it  is  perhaps  no  wonder  that  even  the 
greatest  of  the  men  of  the  past  should  fail  to 
detect  the  fallacy  which  pervades  the  idea  of 
regulating  speech  by  an  academy,  and  that 
consequently  belief  in  the  effectiveness  of  such 
an  agency  should  be  widespread.  Even  those 
who  came  to  reject  it  did  not  reject  it  on 
rational  grounds.  Warburton,  who  could  or- 
dinarily be  trusted  to  give  an  absurd  reason 
for  any  correct  conclusion  at  which  he  arrived, 
did  not  miss  this  opportunity.  He  attacked 
the  desire  for  an  academy  as  an  evidence  of  the 
delight  men  have  in  trifles  when  they  have 
lost  their  public  virtue.  "Arbitrary  govern- 
ments," he  wrote,  "give  encouragement  to  the 
study  of  words  in  order  to  busy  and  amuse 
geniuses  who  might  otherwise  prove  trouble- 
some and  inquisitive.  So  when  Cardinal  Riche- 
20 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

lieu  had  destroyed  the  poor  remains  of  his 
country's  liberties,  and  made  the  supreme 
court  of  parliament  merely  ministerial,  he  in- 
stituted the  French  Academy."^ 

The  same  failure  to  comprehend  the  exact 
nature  of  the  problem  presented  pervades  the 
utterances  on  this  subject  of  Dr.  Johnson.  He 
had  not,  indeed,  spent  3?'ears  in  vain  in  the 
preparation  of  a  dictionary.  He  saw  clearly  the 
futility  of  the  project  of  an  academy  to  regulate 
the  speech.  But  apparently  he  did  not  see  the 
real  reason  for  this  futility.  He  described 
Swift's  project  accurately  enough  as  having  been 
"written  without  much  knowledge  of  the  general 
nature  of  language  and  without  any  very  accu- 
rate enquiry  into  the  history  of  other  tongues."  ^ 
But  in  some  ways  he  had  not  himself  advanced 
much  further  than  the  man  he  criticised.  He 
took  the  ground  that  a  language  has  necessarily 
the  same  career  as  an  individual.  It  has  in- 
evitably its  periods  of  growth,  perfection,  and 
decay.  All  the  stock  remarks  about  the  speech 
being  in  perpetual  danger  of  corruption  are 
found  in  his  pages.  While  he  deplored  this 
assumed  fact,  he  had  learned  to  see  that  the 
means  of  rescuing  it  from  this  ever-threatened 

»  Pope's  Works,  edited  by  Warburton,  1751,  vol.  v., 
p.  245»  '  Life  of  Swift. 

21 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 


calamity  do  not  lie  in  an  academy.  But  his 
reasons  for  the  failure  of  such  an  institution  did 
not  rest  apparently  upon  any  impossibility 
inherent  in  the  project  itself  to  accomplish 
what  it  set  out  to  do,  but  upon  the  peculiar 
character  of  the  English  people. 

Johnson's  views  concerning  the  value  of  an  in- 
stitution of  the  sort,  with  their  strength  and 
their  weakness,  their  ignorance  and  their 
knowledge,  present  a  curious  picture  of  the  mud- 
dled condition  of  men's  minds  upon  the  gen- 
eral subject.  The  Italian  Academy,  according 
to  him,  had  attained  its  end.  The  language 
was  refined  and  so  fixed  that  it  had  changed 
but  little.  The  French  Academy  had  doubt- 
less refined  the  language,  but  had  not  fixed  it. 
It  had  altered  much  during  the  century  that 
had  gone  by.  But  even  this  comparative  success 
was  due  to  the  existence  of  absolute  govern- 
ment. Where  such  prevails  there  is  a  general 
reverence  paid  to  all  that  has  the  sanction  of 
power  and  the  countenance  of  greatness.  But 
in  England  there  was  nothing  of  this  feeling 
existing.  Were  such  an  organization  as  an 
academy  created,  it  would  be,  in  the  first  place, 
Johnson  remarked,  impossible  to  secure  una- 
nimity in  the  adoption  of  the  conclusions 
reached.     Even  if  that  could  be  obtained,  the 

22 


dl 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

philological  decrees  made  and  promulgated 
would  have  no  authority.  Englishmen  live  in 
an  age  and  country,  said  the  old  Tory,  in  which 
it  is  public  sport  to  refuse  all  respect  that  can- 
not be  enforced.  "The  edicts  of  an  academy,*' 
he  wrote,  "would  probably  be  read  by  many, 
only  that  they  might  be  sure  to  disobey  them." 
It  was  clearly  in  vain,  therefore,  to  hope  for 
any  salvation  to  the  language  from  that  quarter. 
The  conclusion  was  right,  even  if  the  reasons 
given  for  it  were  wrong. 

But  belief  about  the  beneficent  influence  of  an 
academy  dies  hard.  The  project  is  sure  to 
crop  up  at  regularly  recurring  intervals,  though 
with  the  increasing  knowledge  of  the  nature  of 
language  it  is  less  likely  each  time  to  meet  with 
favor.  Another  man  of  the  eighteenth  century 
who  saw  in  the  creation  of  such  a  body  the  only 
way  to  save  the  speech  from  being  overwhelmed 
by  the  inflowing  tide  of  corruption  was  John 
Boyle,  the  fifth  earl  of  Orrery.  Swift's  opinion, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  that  the  golden  age  of  the 
language  comprehended  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth 
and  the  first  Stuarts.  But  by  the  time  he  died 
the  point  of  view  had  shifted.  During  the 
middle  and  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century 
it  became  the  proper  thing  to  believe  that 
English  had  reached  its  perfection  in  the  so- 

3  23 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

called  Augustan   period  of    Queen  Anne:   that 
from  the  accession  of  George  II.,  if  not  earlier, 
the  speech  had  entered  upon  a  process  of  decline. 
It    was    daily   becoming    more    corrupt.     New- 
words  and  phrases  were  creeping  in  which  would 
have  filled  Addison  and  Swift  and  Steele  with 
horror.     On  this  point  Lord  Orrery  furnishes 
us    unimpeachable    testimony.      In     175 1    he 
brought  out  a  little  treatise  on  the  Life  and 
Writings  of  Swift.     In  it  he  tells  us  that  in  his 
opinion  the  language  had  been  brought  by  that 
author  and  his  contemporaries  to  the  utmost 
degree     of     perfection.     He     contrasted    their 
style,  altogether  to  their  advantage,  with  that 
of  men  like  Bacon  and  Milton.     Swift,  Addison, 
and  Bolingbroke  he  considered  as  the  trium- 
virate to  whom  the  tongue  owed  an  elegance 
and   propriety   unknown   to   their  forefathers. 
But  at  the  time  he  was  writing  he  assures  us 
that  the  language  was  every  day  growing  more 
debased.     It  is  illustrative  of  the  manner  in 
which  men  seek    to    impose   upon  the  speech 
their  personal  dislikes  and  the  notions  born  of 
their  own  ignorance,  that  one  of  the  expressions 
that  according  to  Orrery  indicated  this  degen- 
eracy was  a  few — a  locution  which  had  been  in 
use  from  the  fourteenth  century  certainly,  if, 
indeed,  it  does  not  go  back  to  the  first  recorded 
24 


IS   ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

beginnings  of  the  tongue.  The  lack  of  grammar 
in  the  Lord's  prayer  also  disturbed  him  might- 
ily, as  it  has  done  so  many  before  and  since  his 
time.  Of  course,  like  all  the  clamorers  for  an 
academy,  he  wanted  one  with  power  to  carry 
out  his  own  particular  notions  and  prejudices. 
Like  them,  too,  he  would  have  been  terribly 
offended,  if  it  undertook  to  carry  out  the  notions 
and  prejudices  of  some  one  else,  to  which  his 
own  were  opposed. 

In  the  opinions  he  held  Orrery  was  a  fair 
representative  of  his  time.  The  views  ex- 
pressed by  him  were  the  views  which  continued 
to  prevail — in  some  quarters  it  would  be  more 
appropriate  to  say,  which  continued  to  rage — 
for  the  rest  of  the  century.  As  one  of  their 
later  exponents  we  turn  to  a  man  who  retains 
with  us  some  little  reputation  as  a  small  poet, 
and  while  he  lived  was  deemed  by  many  to  be 
a  great  philosopher.  He  was  a  Scotchman,  and 
Scotchmen  have  always  seemed  to  feel  a  pained 
solicitude  about  the  English  speech.  At  least 
they  did  so  in  the  eighteenth  century,  when 
they  were  at  times  disposed  to  look  upon  it  as 
a  foreign  tongue.  The  assumption  upon  which 
they  proceeded  was  that  a  word  or  expression 
peculiar  to  North  Britain  was  by  that  very 
fact  improper;  at  all  events,  that  its  introduction 
25 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

into  the  literary  English  tended  somehow  to 
corrupt  the  language.  Its  appropriateness  did 
not  come  into  consideration,  nor  did  its 
significance;  the  all-important  point  was  the 
place  of  its  origin.  It  was  therefore  against 
so-called  Scotticisms  that  Scotch  writers  were 
most  vehement.  This  term,  and  to  a  less  ex- 
tent Irishism,  were  the  ones  commonly  em- 
ployed before  the  discovery  or  invention  of 
Americanism  to  designate  any  particular  locu- 
tion, no  matter  from  what  quarter  coming,  to 
which  exception  was  taken  by  any  Englishman 
to  whom  it  chanced  to  be  unfamiliar.  Con- 
sequently the  epithet  was  not  unfrequently 
applied  to  words  and  phrases  which  had  never 
been  heard  of  in  the  region  in  which  they  were 
supposed  to  have  sprung  up.  But  where  every- 
body is  ignorant,  positive  assertion  of  a  false- 
hood is  just  as  effective  as  the  announcement  of 
an  unquestionable  truth.  That  an  expression 
should  be  stigmatized  as  a  Scotticism  by  any 
half-educated  Englishman  was  sufficient  to  in- 
duce the  best-educated  Scotchman  to  abandon 
the  use  of  it.  Hume's  anxiety  on  this  point  is 
well  known.  He  bowed  with  abject  submission 
to  the  injunctions  of  obscure  men  who  possessed 
not  a  tithe  of  his  ability  nor  one-fourth  of  his 
familiarity  with  the  usage  of  the  best  English 
26 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

writers.  He  revised  his  writings  constantly  in 
order  to  expunge  any  assumed  latent  traces  of 
the  peculiar  speech  of  his  native  land.  Nat- 
urally the  ignorance  of  the  men  by  whom  he 
allowed  his  own  knowledge  to  be  overborne 
enabled  him  to  discover  Scotticisms  where  none 
existed.  He  was  always  on  the  lookout  not 
merely  for  flaws  in  his  own  usage  but  in  that  of 
his  friends.  He  censured  Robertson  for  having 
employed  maltreat  in  his  History  of  Charles  V. 
It  was  a  Scotticism,  he  assured  him.^  In  his 
eyes  that  reason  was  all-sufhcient  for  avoiding 
its  use.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  maltreat  was  in  no 
sense  a  Scotticism.  It  was  one  of  the  words 
which  had  made  its  way  into  the  English  tongue 
from  the  French  during  the  fifty  years  following 
the  Restoration  and  had  been  used  indifferently 
by  writers  belonging  to  every  part  of  Great 
Britain. 

But  even  had  Hume's  statement  about 
maltreat  been  true,  the  reason  given  for  avoiding 
it  would  have  been  none  the  less  worthless. 
If  a  provincial  or  dialectic  word  expresses  some 
idea  adequately  which  the  corresponding  lit- 
erary English  word  expresses  inadequately,  it 
ought  to  be  adopted.     The  use  of  language  is  to 

*  Burton,  Hume,  vol.  ii.,  p.  413. 
27 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

convey  thought.  Any  locution  which  conveys 
thought  most  naturally  and  effectively  has  a 
right  to  its  place  in  the  speech,  no  matter  where 
it  originates.  But  by  the  Scotch  writers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  belief  that  a  word  was 
either  not  used  or  not  supposed  to  be  used  in 
England  was  sufficient  to  insure  its  condemna- 
tion. That  one  fact  stamped  it  as  a  corruption. 
Boswell,  when  he  went  over  his  Life  of  Johnson  for 
his  third  edition,  changed  in  at  least  four  places 
the  word  forenoon  into  morning}  He  clearly 
assumed  the  former  to  be  a  Scotticism,  though 
the  fact  that  the  object  of  his  hero-worship  had 
admitted  it  into  his  dictionary  without  comment 
ought  to  have  reassured  him  on  that  point. 
Still  it  is  probable  that  it  was  far  more  in  use  in 
the  north  of  Britain  than  in  the  south.  But, 
independent  of  the  place  of  origin  or  customary 
employment,  the  loss  of  such  a  word  as  forenoon 
would  be  an  actual  loss  to  the  language.  It 
does  something  more  than  correspond  to  after- 
noon; it  marks  with  precision  a  particular  part 
of  the  day.  It  thereby  adds  to  the  resources 
of  the  speech. 

But  the  Scotchman  who  took  most  to  heart 
the  evil  influences  affecting  the  language  from 

^  Boswell,  Life  of  Johnson,  edited  by  George  Birkbeck 
Hill,  American  edition,  vol.  ii.,  p.  283,  note. 
28 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

the  influx  of  Scotticisms  was  the  one  to  whom 
allusion  has  already  been  made.  His  name 
was  James  Beattie.  He  was,  as  has  been  said, 
a  poet  and  a  philosopher.  In  the  latter  ca- 
pacity he  had  commended  himself  to  the  re- 
ligious by  a  very  virulent  attack  upon  the 
metaphysical  speculations  of  Hume.  This  gave 
him  great  reputation  at  the  time ;  for  his  treatise 
was  written  in  an  agreeable  style,  and  with  all 
that  clearness  of  expression  which  with  many 
serves  as  a  satisfactory  substitute  for  clearness 
of  ideas.  Among  other  results  it  brought  him 
the  favor  of  George  III.,  with  whom,  like  Dr. 
Johnson,  he  had  a  personal  interview.  The 
meeting  between  the  professorial  and  the  offi- 
cial defender  of  the  faith  took  place  in  1773. 
As  became  a  loyal  subject,  Beattie  was  pro- 
foundly impressed  with  the  good  sense,  knowl- 
edge, and  acuteness  of  the  monarch.  One  of  the 
topics  touched  upon  was  the  English  language. 
In  it  the  practical  ignorance  of  the  ruler  had 
its  counterpart  in  the  philosophical  ignorance 
of  the  subject.  The  king  asked  him  if  he  did 
not  think  the  language  was  at  that  time  in  a 
decline.  Beattie  was  forced  to  reply  that  such 
was  the  melancholy  fact.  The  king  agreed,  and 
named  the  Spectator  as  one  of  the  best  standards 
of  the  speech.  This  was  the  only  proper  doc- 
29 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

trine  to  hold  then,  and  Beattie  concurred  in  it 
with  all  his  heart.  It  had  long  been  his  own 
opinion.  He  was  a  good,  genuine  conservative, 
and  felt  that  neither  the  English  tongue  nor 
the  English  constitution  stood  in  the  slightest 
need  of  change.  Consequently,  he  was  always 
indulging  in  a  mild  form  of  terror  at  the  ruin 
impending  over  the  one  because  of  the  new 
ideas  coming  in,  and  over  the  other  because  of 
the  new  words.  As  for  the  principal  personage 
in  the  conversation  his  published  correspondence 
has  made  us  aware  that  the  English  of  the  king 
varied  widely  at  times  from  the  king's  English. 
To  Beattie,  Hume  would  have  seemed  a  sinful 
man  not  only  in  his  religious  but  in  his  lin- 
guistic views.  All  that  occupied  the  thoughts 
of  the  latter  was  a  selfish  interest  in  the  propriety 
of  his  own  usage.  But  the  anxiety  of  the 
former  mainly  arose  from  the  degeneracy  he 
seemed  to  see  overtaking  the  speech  itself.  His 
solicitude  grew  upon  him  as  he  advanced  in 
years.  He  contemplated  but  never  carried 
out  the  composition  of  a  criticism  on  the  style 
of  Addison.  His  aim  in  this  would  have  been 
to  show  its  peculiar  merits,  and,  furthermore,  to 
lay  bare  the  hazards  to  which  the  language  was 
exposed  of  being  debased  and  corrupted  by  the 
innovations  which  had  of  late,  he  said,  "found 
30 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

their  way  into  the  style  of  our  best  and  most 
esteemed  writers."  He  had  prepared  a  collec- 
tion of  Scotticisms,  which  of  course  were  ex- 
pressions to  be  carefully  avoided.  He  began, 
however,  to  be  timid  about  publishing  it.  While 
he  had  been  engaged  in  its  compilation  many  of 
the  words  and  phrases  it  contained  had  been 
adopted  in  the  speech  used  south  of  the  Tweed. 
The  work,  long  before  circulated  privately,  was, 
however,  brought  out  in  1784.  It  was  full  of 
that  mixture  of  truth  and  falsehood  with  which 
manuals  of  usage  have  long  rendered  us  famil- 
iar. It  is  fair  to  say  of  the  collection  that  it  was 
made  up  mainly  of  words  and  phrases  peculiar 
to  the  language  of  North  Britain.  But  it  also 
contained  much  irrelevant  matter.  There  was 
a  considerable  number  of  locutions  w^hich  were 
no  more  the  exclusive  property  of  Scotland  than 
of  any  other  part  of  the  planet  where  English 
is  spoken  at  all.  Among  them,  for  example, 
were  such  vulgarisms  or  colloquialisms  as  the 
preposition  again  for  against,  the  preterite  seed 
for  saw,  the  verb  lay  for  lie;  or  such  obsolete 
or  obsolescent  usages  as  learn  in  the  sense  of 
*  teach '  or  harvest  in  the  sense  of  *  autumn'.  The 
truth  is  that  many  things  in  the  volume  were 
not  so  much  an  exhibition  of  Beattie's  knowledge 
of  Scotch  as  of  his  ignorance  of  English.  We 
31 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

must  not  say,  he  told  us,  close  the  door  but  shut 
it.  We  must  not  say  in  place  of  but  instead 
of.  We  must  not  say  simply  impossible,  but 
absolutely  impossible.  To  use  here  with 
verbs  of  motion  instead  of  hither  was  not  al- 
lowable. All  these  locutions  were,  for  some  in- 
scrutable reason,  reckoned  Scotticisms.  Among 
these,  in  truth,  he  includes  I  reckon  itself  in  the 
sense  of  *I  am  of  opinion,'  *I  conjecture'^ — a 
usage  once  literary,  which  still  remains  common 
in  the  United  States,  especially  in  the  South. 
Beattie's  general  attitude  may  be  summed 
up  in  his  remarks  upon  the  following  words: 
''Narrate  and  to  notice''  he  wrote,  "have  of  late 
been  used  by  some  English  writers:  but  it  is 
better  to  avoid  them."  They  had  upon  them 
the  taint  of  provinciality.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  note  of  despondency  pervading  his  work. 
Militate,  a  verb  in  no  way  peculiar  to  North 
Britain,  he  characterized  as  one  of  several  Scot- 
ticisms, such  as  adduce,  narrate,  restrict,  which 
seemed  "to  be  getting  into  the  language  of 
England." 

As  was  inevitable,  this  despondency  increased 
in  a  man  who  sincerely  believed  that  our  tongue 

**'In  many  intricacies  Frederick  has  been;  but 
never,  I  reckon,  in  any  equal  to  this." — Carlyle, 
Frederick,  bk.  xvii.,  chap.  i. 

32 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

had  been  brought  to  perfection  in  the  days  of 
Addison  and  Swift,  and  that  any  alterations  | 
which  had  taken  place  since  had  been  altera-  » 
tions  for  the  worse.  In  Beattie's  opinion  every 
unauthorized  word  and  idiom  which  had  been 
introduced  without  absolute  necessity  into  the 
tongue  tended  to  its  debasement.  His  later 
utterances  present  an  instructive  picture  of  a 
state  of  mind  which  we  see  constantly  ex- 
emplified by  men  of  our  own  day  who  have  little 
acquaintance  with  the  influences  operating  upon 
speech.  "  Our  language  (I  mean  the  English)  is 
degenerating  very  fast,"  he  wrote,  sorrowfully,  to 
a  friend  in  1785;  ''and  many  phrases  which  I 
know  to  be  Scottish  idioms,  have  got  into  it  of 
late  years,  so  that  many  of  my  strictures  are 
liable  to  be  opposed  by  authorities  which  the 
world  accounts  unexceptionable."  As  time 
went  on,  the  prospect  grew  even  more  dismal. 
In  a  letter  of  1790,  commenting  on  the  annota- 
tions made  to  a  recent  edition  of  the  Tatler,  he 
described  the  language  employed  in  them  as 
"full  of  those  new-fangled  phrases  and  bar- 
barous idioms  that  are  now  so  much  affected 
by  those  who  form  their  style  from  political 
pamphlets  and  those  pretended  speeches  in 
parliament  that  appear  in  newspapers.  Should 
this  jargon  continue  to  gain  ground  among  us, 
33 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

English  literature  will  go  to  ruin.  During  the 
last  twenty  years,  especially  since  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  American  war,  it  has  made  alarm- 
ing progress.  ...  If  I  live  to  execute  what  I 
propose  on  the  writings  and  genius  of  Addison, 
I  shall  at  least  enter  my  protest  against  the 
practice;  and  by  exhibiting  a  copious  specimen 
of  the  new  phraseology,  endeavor  to  make  my 
reader  set  his  heart  against  it." 

On  more  than  one  other  occasion  Beattie  ex- 
pressed the  anxiety  he  felt  at  the  degeneracy 
then  taking  place  in  the  English  tongue  and 
his  fear  of  the  impossibility  of  arresting  its 
progress.  The  speech  was  not  simply  declining, 
it  was  declining  rapidly.  In  a  letter  to  a  friend, 
written  in  August,  1790,  he  expressed  his 
gratification  that  Miss  Bowdler  approved  of  the 
sentiments  he  entertained  as  to  the  increase  of 
the  corruption  which  was  bringing  about  the 
deterioration  of  the  language.  "I  begin  to 
fear,"  he  added,  "it  will  be  impossible  to  check 
it;  but  an  attempt  would  be  made,  if  I  had 
leisure  and  a  little  more  tranquillity  of  mind." 
Time  and  tranquil  mind  were  apparently  both 
denied.  Beattie  never  completed  his  treatise 
on  the  style  of  Addison.  Accordingly  he  never 
furnished  his  readers  with  a  list  of  those  neolo- 
gisms which  were  stealing  into  and  corrupting  the 
34 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

speech.  But  in  1794  he  printed  privately  some 
productions  in  prose  and  verse  of  his  son,  said 
to  have  been  a  youth  of  great  promise,  who 
died  in  1790.  Among  them  were  two  or  three 
entitled  Dialogues  of  the  Dead.  These  dealt 
with  the  subject  of  language,  and  unquestion- 
ably represented  Beattie's  own  opinions.  One 
of  them  is  the  report  of  an  imaginary  conversa- 
tion between  Swift  and  a  bookseller  and  Mercury. 
Swift  is  disgusted  with  the  expressions  used  by 
the  tradesman,  and  begs  Mercury  to  translate  his 
gibberish  into  English.  A  few  of  the  words  and 
phrases,  then  indicated  as  corruptions,  are  still 
strange  to  us;  but  most  of  them  are  now  used 
every  day  by  those  who  are  in  a  state  of  distress 
because  of  the  impending  ruin  of  the  tongue. 

It  is  both  suggestive  and  instructive  to  learn 
a  little  of  this  new  language  which  had  come 
into  fashion,  as  Mercury  gives  Swift  to  under- 
stand. "Instead  of  life,  new,  wish  for,  take, 
plunge,  etc,"  he  told  him,  "you  must  say 
existence,  novel,  desiderate,  capture,  ingurgitate, 
etc.,  as — a  fever  put  an  end  to  his  existence.  .  .  . 
Instead  of  a  new  fashion,  you  will  do  well  to  say 
a  novel  fashion.  .  .  .  You  must  on  no  account 
speak  of  taking  the  enemy's  ships,  towns,  guns, 
or  baggage:  it  must  be  capturing.''  This  last 
word,  we  are  told,  had  been  imported  about 
35 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

twenty  years  before.  Sort  and  kind  were  un- 
fashionable nouns  and  indeed  quite  vulgar; 
description,  on  account  of  its  length  and  Latin 
original,  was  better.  Instead  of  undervaluing 
your  enemies,  you  set  no  store  by  them.  Un- 
friendly and  hostile  had  both  given  place  to 
inimical.  This  word  was  said  to  have  come  in 
at  the  same  time  with  capture;  but  though  a 
great  favorite,  it  was  pronounced  differently  by 
those  who  used  it. 

There  are  many  other  words  and  phrases  cen- 
sured, some  of  which  the  majority  of  us  would 
now  think  we  could  hardly  get  along  without. 
Line,  meet,  marked,  feel,  and  go,  we  are  told,  were 
employed  on  all  occasions,  whether  they  had 
any  meaning  or  not.  Instead  of  saying  conduct, 
it  was  fashionable  to  say  line  of  coi^uct.  You 
meet  a  person's  wishes  and  arguments.  You 
are  received  with  marked  applause,  or  contempt, 
or  admiration.  The  words  am  and  be  were  in 
danger  of  being  forgotten,  having  been  crowded 
out  by  feel.  Accordingly,  instead  of  using  is 
with  the  following  adjectives,  one  says  he  feels 
anxious,  afraid,  warm,  sick,  ashamed.  In- 
stead of  saying  that  one's  arguments  proved 
certain  things,  we  must  assert  that  his  argu- 
ments went  to  prove.  For  reformation  again 
everybody  was  learning  to  say  reform,  this  latter 

36 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

being  a  French  word  and  the  other  vile  old 
EngUsh.  For  the  future  it  had  become  fashion- 
able to  say  in  future.  There  were  also  some  cur- 
rent phrases  which  were  not  merely  ambiguous 
but  unintelligible.  Among  them  were  such 
expressions  as  scouted  the  idea,  netted  a  cool 
thousattd,  he  had  not  made  up  his  mind.  Then 
there  was  a  tendency  to  use  uncommon  ter- 
minations. Men  said  committal  instead  of 
commitment,  approval  instead  of  approbationy 
truism  for  truth.  Objectionable  upon  other 
grounds  were  agriculturist  for  husbandman  and 
pugilist  for  boxer.  Swift's  patience  is  repre- 
sented as  finally  giving  way  altogether  under 
the  infliction  of  the  following  sentence: 

"We  hear  it  is  in  contemplation  to  run  up  a 
novel  and  superb  pavilion  at  Newmarket  for 
Pugilistical  exhibitions. ' ' 

He  sees  his  old  friend  Addison  coming,  and 
takes  his  departure  with  the  assertion  that  it 
would  require  an  hour  even  of  his  con\^ersation 
to  wear  out  the  disagreeable  impression  left  in 
his  mind  by  this  abominable  detail  of  vulgar- 
ity, pedantry,  and  barbarism. 

So  much  for  the  eighteenth  century.  The  nine- 
teenth century  abounded  in  men  who  had  very 
decided  opinions  as  to  the  debasement  which 
was  overtaking  the  speech,  and  were  filled  with 
37 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

anxiety  about  its  future.  But  expression  of 
views  of  this  sort  came  rarely  from  writers  of 
■ability  and  learning.  To  this  rule  there  is  one 
distinguished  exception.  It  is  Walter  Savage 
Landor.  He,  however,  made  up  to  some  ex- 
tent for  the  comparative  loneliness  of  his  posi- 
tion by  the  shrillness  and  extravagance  of  his 
utterance.  His  observations  demand  a  good 
deal  of  attention,  not  for  any  value  they  have 
in  themselves,  but  for  the  respect  which  has 
been  paid  them  because  of  his  undisputed 
eminence  in  other  fields.  Landor  is  the  only 
one  of  the  minor  gods  of  the  Georgian  era  in 
whose  honor  a  cult  has  been  instituted.  His 
worshippers  have  naturally  felt  bound  to  accept 
his  oracles,  at  least  where  they  did  not  conflict 
too  violently  with  their  own  prejudices.  Most 
of  his  devotees,  being  good,  conservative  Eng- 
lishmen, have  turned  away  with  saddened  eyes 
from  the  orthographic  changes  he  advocated; 
for  in  that  matter  Landor  chose  to  consider 
himself  a  reformer,  and,  if  he  could  have  had 
his  way,  would  have  left  our  barbarously  spelled 
tongue  in  a  much  more  pitiable  plight  than  he 
found  it.  Many  of  those,  however,  who  have 
been  shocked  by  his  orthographic  vagaries  have 
accepted  and  repeated  his  conclusions  about 
corruptions  of  speech.  Yet  his  views  in  the 
38 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

former  matter  are  far  more  endurable  than  those 
he  expressed  about  language.  In  his  discussion 
of  spelling  Landor  was  occasionally  right  when 
he  could  easily  have  been  wrong ;  in  his  remarks 
on  words  and  their  uses  he  was  almost  invariably 
wrong  whenever  it  was  possible  so  to  be. 

Landor's  observations,  both  general  and  par- 
ticular, on  language  are  to  be  found  in  certain 
of  his  Imaginary  Conversations.  Of  these  the 
first  series  came  out  in  1824.  Knowledge 
of  the  nature  and  development  of  speech  had 
made  a  good  deal  of  progress  during  the  more 
than  century  which  had  gone  by  since  Swift 
addressed  his  letter  to  Lord  Oxford.  But  not 
a  ray  of  this  additional  light  ever  reached  Lan- 
dor's eyes.  He  still  continued  to  retain  and 
repeat  the  crude  notions,  long  abandoned  by 
all  real  students  of  speech  and  left  now  to  the 
craziest  class  of  verbal  critics.  The  desire  of  the 
writers  of  the  age  of  Queen  Anne  that  the  lan- 
guage should  be  settled  and  fixed  met  w4th  his 
unqualified  approval.  Their  natural  acuteness, 
he  said,  had  taught  them  the  utility  of  this  course. 
Necessarily  came  from  him  the  same  doleful 
representation  of  the  condition  and  prospects  of 
the  speech.  In  one  of  his  earlier  conversations 
Landor  told  us  that  w*ithin  another  generation 
the  language,  with  the  improper  innovations 
4  39 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

constantly  made,  would  have  become  so  corrupt 
that  writers,  if  they  hoped  for  life,  would  find  it 
necessary  to  mount  up  near  its  sources.  In  one 
of  his  latest  he  affirmed  that  the  English  tongue 
had  fallen,  for  the  last  half -century,  more  rapidly 
into  corruption  and  decomposition  than  any 
other  ever  spoken  among  men.  It  was  in  his 
eyes  a  subject  of  regret  that  Bishop  Lowth  and 
Home  Tooke  were  kept  so  far  apart  by  their 
social  and  political  relations  that  they  never 
could  have  united  ' '  to  stop  the  innovations  and 
to  diminish  the  anomalies  of  our  language." 
Of  course  the  inevitable  Southey  had  to  be 
dragged  in.  In  Landor's  opinion  that  author, 
though  in  his  youth  during  the  time  indicated, 
might  have  been  of  material  assistance  to  the 
two.  No  further  comment  need  be  made  upon 
this  suggestion  than  the  bare  statement  that 
Southey  was  just  fourteen  years  old  when  Lowth 
died. 

Landor's  specific  observations  upon  usage, 
and  the  corrections  he  proposed  for  the  sake  of 
saving  the  language  from  approaching  ruin, 
merit  attention  for  the  following  reasons.  They 
illustrate  forcibly  the  methods  taken  by  verbal 
critics  to  establish  the  speech  in  an  assumed 
pure  and  perfect  state ;  and  they  bring  out  even 
more  forcibly  the  muddiness  of  ideas  and  the 
40 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

limitation  of  knowledge  which  constitute  the 
leading  features  of  these  attempts.  His  discus- 
sion of  points  of  usage  occurs  mainly  in  two 
conversations,  one  between  Dr.  Johnson  and 
Home  Tooke,  and  the  other  between  himself 
and  Archdeacon  Hare.  The  first  of  these  ap- 
peared in  its  original  form  in  1824.  If  ever  a 
conversation  had  a  right  to  be  termed  imaginary, 
this  one  is  entitled  to  the  distinction.  It  is 
not  worth  while  to  spend  much  time  upon  the 
numerous  glaring  anachronisms  contained  in  it 
throughout.  In  the  very  opening  of  the  dia- 
logue Tooke  is  represented  as  congratulating 
Johnson  upon  the  completion  of  his  great  under- 
taking. It  had  been  sent  him  the  moment  it 
came  from  the  press,  and  he  had  been  engaged 
ever  since  in  its  perusal.  Now  the  Dictionary 
was  published  in  1755,  when  Tooke,  or  Home 
as  was  his  name  then,  was  but  nineteen  years 
old.  In  the  lie  which  is  represented  as  coming 
soon  after  from  his  mouth,  that  he  had  read 
almost  all  the  old  English  authors  that  were 
printed  or  extant,  the  matter  of  age  is  of  little 
consequence.  It  would  have  been  a  lie,  dif- 
ferent in  degree  but  the  same  in  kind,  had  he 
been  ninety  instead  of  nineteen.  But  the  un- 
reality of  the  conversation  is  due  to  the  part 
severally  played  by  the  two  speakers  in  the 
41 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

dialogue.  Tooke  does  practically  all  the  talking. 
Johnson  is  represented  as  behaving  in  a  way  he 
was  incapable  of  doing.  He  listens  most  of  the 
time  in  submissive  silence,  occasionally  emitting 
a  growl  at  the  personal  character  or  beliefs  of 
his  interlocutor,  but  accepting  with  assent  or 
without  contradiction  some  of  his  most  pre- 
posterous statements,  and  at  intervals  contrib- 
uting to  the  discussion  some  observations  of 
his  own  almost  as  absurd.  To  any  one  knowing 
about  the  men  the  part  that  Johnson  is  made  to 
play  is  more  than  imaginary;  it  is  inconceivable. 
The  two  dialogues  which  have  been  mentioned 
are  treasure-houses  of  mistakes  of  fact  and  mis- 
takes of  inference.  Rarely  can  we  find  crowded 
into  the  compass  of  a  few  pages  so  much  phonet- 
ic, orthographical,  and  etymological  error  of  all 
sorts;  and  along  with  it  a  linguistic  perversity 
which  enabled  Landor,  when  he  hit  upon  the 
right  view,  to  give  a  wrong  reason  for  it.  Limit 
of  space  makes  it  necessary  to  confine  attention 
to  errors  which  illustrate  two  principal  delusions 
about  speech  which  are  widely  prevalent  among 
those  whose  professed  aim  is  to  restore  usage  to 
its  pristine  perfection.  One  concerns  the  mean- 
ings in  which  words  are  employed.  Few  there 
are  which  are  not  capable  of  being  used  in  a 
variety  of  senses.  Now  and  then  some  of  these 
42 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

fully  authorized  significations,  for  undefined 
and  indefinable  reasons,  fall  under  the  ban 
of  the  purist.  Landor,  for  instance,  tells  us 
that  it  is  improper  to  employ  he  verb  exe- 
cute in  the  sense  of  hanging,  beheading,  or 
otherwise  putting  a  man  to  death.  He  clearly 
knew  nothing  of  the  origin  of  this  usage.  He 
was  probably  as  ignorant  as  he  was  certainly 
unmindful  of  the  fact  that,  from  the  fifteenth 
century  on,  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  works  of 
every  writer  of  EngHsh,  good  or  bad,  who  has 
had  occasion  to  describe  the  act  denoted  by  it. 
His  objection  never  influenced  or  could  influence 
the  action  of  any  one  who  was  at  all  familiar 
with  the  best  usage ;  but  it  reveals  unmistakably 
the  limitations  of  the  objector. 

The  other  and  much  more  prevalent  delusion 
is  concerned  with  etymology.  Landor  was 
fully  possessed  by  that  devil  of  derivation  which, 
unlike  the  evil  spirit  of  Scripture,  makes  happy 
him  in  whom  it  dwells  and  vexes  only  the  souls 
of  those  with  whom  he  comes  in  contact.  There 
are  some  men  who  seem  incapable  of  compre- 
hending the  fact  that  it  is  the  present  meaning 
of  a  word  which  determines  the  propriety  of  its 
use ;  not  its  past  meaning,  still  less  its  meaning  in 
the  tongue  from  which  it  came.  Of  this  par- 
ticular kind  of  incapacity  Landor  furnished  so 
43 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

many  examples  in  these  two  conversations  that 
attention  must  be  restricted  to  a  very  few  which 
can  be  treated  in  a  few  words.     He  impHes 
that  it  is  wrong  to  say  bad  or  false  orthography, 
because   orthography   means  by  its  derivation 
right  spelUng.     He  informs  us  that  we  are  at 
Hberty  to  gather  two  or  more  roses,  but  not  to 
gather  one;  for   gather    comes   from   the    same 
root  as  together.     Examine  into  is  incorrect,  be- 
cause examine  strictly  means   'to  weigh  out.* 
But  the  evil  spirit  of  derivation  conducts  itself 
as   do   ghosts   according   to   the    apprehension 
of  Horatio  in  the  play  of  Hamlet.     It  tempts 
the  unhappy  victim  to  the  summit  of  some  dread- 
ful linguistic  cliff  from  which,  owing  to  the  in- 
ability to  view  and  heed  everything,  he  is  sure 
at  some  time  to  tumble  headlong.     We  are  here 
required  to  believe  that  it  is  highly  improper  to 
say  "under  the  circumstances,"  though  every- 
body has  been  saying  it  for  the  past  two  or  three 
centuries.     But  the   Latin  circum  shows  that 
circumstances  are  about  us,  not  above  us;  it  is 
therefore  quite  impossible  for  us  to  be  under 
them.     So  Landor  assures  us ;  and  then  proceeds 
himself  to  write  averse  to.     This  is  a  construction 
which  has  been  in  the  best  of  use  for  three 
hundred  years,  and  is  likely  so  to  continue  for 
hundreds  of  years  to  come.     But  while  the  rest 
44 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

of  us  have  the  right  to  say  it,  Landor  had  no 
such  privilege,  if  he  purposed  to  remain  faithful 
to  his  principles.  The  construction  with  /rom, 
not  so  common  in  the  best  usage,  was  never- 
theless unobjectionable  and  was  open  to  him. 
It  was  his  business  to  use  it  and  not  the  one 
with  to. 

To  base  propriety  of  present  usage  upon  der- 
ivation would  render  it  necessary  for  an  Eng- 
lish writer  to  master  three  or  four  languages 
before  he  could  safely  deliver  himself  in  his  own. 
The  ridiculousness  of  such  a  requirement  reveals 
at  once  the  ridiculousness  of  the  idea  that  makes 
an  inference  of  such  a  nature  possible.  All  that 
is  further  needed  to  enhance  the  preposterous- 
ness  of  the  course  is  to  rest  the  meaning  upon  an 
erroneous  derivation.  This  Landor,  who  was  in 
no  sense  a  scholar  as  regards  his  own  tongue, 
was  usually  able  to  accomplish.  Conjecture  ran 
riot  in  his  observations,  unembarrassed  by  suf- 
ficient knowledge  to  give  it  even  a  slight  claim  to 
plausibility.  His  guesses  at  the  origin  of  words 
such,  for  instance,  as  horse-laugh,  net,  gossamer, 
read  like  the  utterances  of  a  distempered  brain. 
His  positive  assertions  were,  if  possible,  more 
extraordinary.  Bower,  he  tells  us,  is  the  last 
syllable  of  arbour.  As  a  matter  of  fact  bower 
was  in  the  language  some  centuries  before 
45 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

arbor — originally  {h)erbere — made  its  appearance 
in  it.  Landor,  indeed,  was  so  deplorably  igno- 
rant of  English  etymology  that  he  missed  the 
benefit  he  would  have  derived  from  it  to  sup- 
port the  views  he  advocated.  **  We  write  island 
with  an  5,"  he  said,  in  his  capacity  of  spelling- 
reformer,  "as  if  we  feared  to  be  thought  igno- 
rant of  its  derivation."  The  truth  is,  we  write 
island  with  an  s,  because  we  are  ignorant  of  its 
derivation.  It  was  not  till  the  sixteenth  century 
that  men,  under  the  fancied  belief  that  the 
word  was  connected  with  isle,  inserted  the  s, 
which  hides  from  us  its  real  origin.  One  more 
illustration  must  suffice  of  Landor's  efforts  to 
restore  usage  to  its  primitive  purity.  He  was 
unaware  that  whiles  is  etymologically  a  genitive 
singular;  he  assumed  that  it  was  a  plural.  On 
the  strength  of  this  blunder  he  was  enabled  to 
pronounce  the  following  dictum  for  the  benefit 
of  writers.  *  *  While,' '  he  said,  *  *  is  the  time  when ; 
whiles  is  the  times  when." 

Landor's  opinions  about  language  and  the 
words  composing  it  are  so  often  spoken  of  as 
authoritative  that  it  has  been  necessary  to  sub- 
ject his  pretensions  to  strict  examination.  His 
comments  upon  speech  are  of  the  same  vahie  as 
his  emendations  of  Shakespeare.  These  latter 
have  been  too  much  neglected  by  commentators, 
46 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

unaware  of  the  fund  of  harmless  entertainment 
they  afford.  For  illustration,  in  the  celebrated 
passage  in  Measure  for  Measure  where  Claudio 
speaks  of  "the  delighted  spirit"  as  compelled 
**to  bathe  in  fiery  floods,"  Landor  substituted 
belighted  for  delighted.  From  this  word,  he  said, 
blighted  was  derived,  and  it  itself  meant  'struck 
by  lightning.'  A  strange  product  would  the 
language  have  been,  after  it  had  been  submitted 
to  his  remodelling  in  order  to  preserve  it  from 
corruption.  Not  that  he  himself  ever  had  the 
slightest  doubt  as  to  the  correctness  of  his  state- 
ments and  the  truth  of  his  convictions.  Ex- 
posure of  his  blunders  provoked  his  wrath  but 
never  shook  his  self-confidence.  The  wayward- 
ness and  wrongheadedness  of  the  views  he  ex- 
pressed joined  with  the  violence  of  his  utterances 
give  a  certain  justification  to  Byron's  designa- 
tion of  him  as  "that  deep-mouthed  Boeotian, 
Savage  Landor."  The  errors  which  vitiated  his 
conclusions,  as  well  as  the  conclusions  of  those 
who  preceded  him,  will  constitute  the  subject 
of  the  following  part. 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 


II 

The  historical  survey  given  in  the  preced- 
ing section,  brief  as  it  is,  suffices  to  show 
conclusively  that  the  belief  that  the  Eng- 
lish language  is  on  the  road  to  ruin  is  not  pe- 
culiar to  any  period.  It  has  been  held  by  the 
men  of  every  generation.  All  through  the 
latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the 
whole  of  the  nineteenth  the  growing  debase- 
ment of  the  speech  was  the  subject  of  constant 
comment  in  the  newspaper  press.  Nor  were 
the  utterances  of  sorrow  confined  to  contribu- 
tors to  slight  and  ephemeral  publications.  They 
came  from  men  who  had  access  to  grave  and 
stately  periodicals.  Take,  for  illustration,  a 
representative  passage  from  the  Quarterly  Re- 
view, which  then  loomed  large  before  the  popular 
eye.  It  occurs  in  a  criticism  on  Chalmer's 
Caledonia,  to  which  work  it  gave  great  praise. 
With  the  eulogium  for  the  information  conveyed 
was]mingled,  however,  censure  for  the  expression. 
Yet  the  faults  were  criticised  not  so  much  as 
if  the  writer  were  personally  responsible  for 
them,  but  as  if  he  had  been  overtaken  and  over- 
whelmed by  the  flood  of  corruption  pouring  into 
the  tongue.  "Let  not,"  said  the  reviewer  "a 
48 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

writer  whom  we  highly  esteem  and  respect,  be 
ofiEended  if,  not  to  hurt  his  feelings,  but  as  the 
first  protest  against  a  rapid  and  alarming  de- 
basement which  is  taking  place  in  the  English 
language,  we  animadvert  with  honest  freedom 
on  the  style  and  composition  of  his  Caledonia; 
a  style  which  is  not  the  fortuitous  result  of 
mere  indifference  to  simple  and  elegant  narra- 
tive, but  formed  by  a  sort  of  counter-taste,  a 
bad  ear,  and  multifarious  reading,  out  of  the 
dregs  of  Johnson  and  Gibbon,  whipped  up  with 
the  best  of  many  modem  writers,  their  miser- 
able imitators.  This  *big  and  burly  way  of 
nonsense,'  as  a  great  master  of  style  happily 
termed  it,  by  hard  words,  involved  constructions, 
awkward  metaphors,  overloading  epithets,  and 
unmeasured  sentences,  is  making  such  daily 
and  formidable  inroads  upon  the  purity  and 
structure  of  our  mother-tongue,  that  if  no  check 
be  put  to  it  by  those  who,  in  defect  of  a  nation- 
al academy,  have  assumed  to  themselves  the 
province  of  watching  over  the  national  taste  and 
language,  the  written  and  colloquial  dialects  of 
the  country  will  quickly  be  removed  to  an  im- 
measurable distance  from  each  other;  and,  what 
is  of  the  greatest  importance,  though  not  im- 
mediately connected  with  our  present  topic, 
the  language  of  the  pulpit  as  well  as  the  press 
49 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

will  become  almost  unintelligible  to  the  mass  of 
our  countrymen."^ 

Passages  containing  similar  predictions  of 
contingent  calamities  could  be  multiplied  by  the 
score  from  the  periodical  literature  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  They  are  found  frequently  in 
the  publications  of  the  present  day,  and  will 
doubtless  continue  to  be  found  a  century  hence. 
It  is  fair  to  add,  however,  that  rarely  in  any  age 
have  such  utterances  come  from  men  of  the 
intellectual  grade  of  Swift  and  Landor.  The 
Beatties  and  Miss  Bowdlers  will  never  die  out. 
Furthermore,  it  is  to  be  said  that  from  views  of 
this  sort  there  has  never  been  much  open  dissent. 
Dryden,  indeed,  writing  in  1670,  maintained  that 
the  language  had  been  improving  since  the  era 
of  the  great  dramatists,  instead  of  degenerating. 
But  in  this  instance,  as  in  so  many  others,  he 
was  arguing  as  an  advocate ;  he  was  not  speaking 
as  a  judge.  It  is  plain  from  his  further  words 
that  the  opinion  he  expressed  was  not  the 
opinion  generally  entertained.  He  admitted 
that  many  in  his  time  insisted  that  from  Ben 
Jonson's  death  to  their  own  day  English  speech 
"had  been  in  a  continual  declination  like  that 
of  the  Romans  from  the  age  of  Virgil  to  Statius, 
and  so  downwards  to  Claudian." 
*  Quarterly  Review,  vol.  iv.,  p.  357.  November,  1810. 
SO 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

In  truth,  if  we  take  for  authority  the  con- 
temporary opinion  of  successive  periods,  there 
is  no  escape  from  the  conclusion  that,  for  the 
past  two  hundred  years  at  least,  our  tongue  has 
been  steadily  deteriorating.  There  is  in  it  an 
innate  depravity  which  tends  to  make  it  go 
wrong.  As  if  this  were  not  enough,  there  are 
always  certain  mischievous  and  irresponsible 
persons  who  are  engaged  in  the  work  of  destroy- 
ing its  purity.  In  Swift's  time  it  was  the  fre- 
quenters of  the  court,  the  theatrical  writers,  the 
translators  from  the  French,  and  the  poets.  In 
Beattie's  time  it  was  the  political  pamphleteers 
and  essayists.  But  during  the  last  fifty  to  one 
hundred  years  the  agency  which  has  been  the 
favorite  one  to  accuse  of  corrupting  the  lan- 
guage is  the  newspaper.  Its  influence  upon  it 
has  been  described  as  pestilential.  We  are  con- 
stantly treated  to  specimens  of  what  is  called  its 
English.  One  might  fairly  infer  from  the  way  in 
which  it  is  often  spoken  of  that  with  the  steadily 
increasing  circulation  of  this  sort  of  periodical  lit- 
erature there  is  no  hope  whatever  for  our  speech. 

The  influence  of  the  nev/spaper  upon  the 
language  can  assuredly  neither  be  denied  nor  dis- 
regarded. Yet  it  is  hard  to  see  why  this  kind  of 
literary  production  should  be  selected  as  the 
special  agent  destined  to  bring  about  the  general 
51 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

ruin  which  is  always  impending.  Why  should 
its  influence  be  so  peculiarly  calamitous?  Are 
there  no  other  producers  of  bad  English  than 
those  who  write  for  it?  Of  course  there  are 
newspapers  and  newspapers.  Some  of  them 
deserve  all  the  denunciation  which  has  been  im- 
partially laid  by  their  censurers  upon  the  whole 
body.  Doubtless,  too,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  bad 
thinking  and  bad  writing  to  be  found  in  the 
columns  of  the  very  best  of  them.  Nor  need  it 
be  denied  that  newspaper  work  is  subject  to 
certain  conditions  which  tend  to  impair  ex- 
cellence. What  is  produced  must  be  produced 
to  meet  the  want  of  the  moment.  Little  or  no 
time  can  be  allowed  for  reflection  or  examination 
or  revision.  As,  therefore,  it  is  a  kind  of  work 
that  is  almost  invariably  done  under  stress,  it  is 
sure  from  the  nature  of  things  to  be  specially 
liable  to  the  faults  which  spring  from  haste  and 
carelessness.  But  haste  and  carelessness  are  not 
confined  to  newspaper  writing,  nor  is  rapid  pro- 
duction necessarily  poor  production. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  counter-balancing 
advantages  in  its  favor.  The  writers  connected 
with  the  more  important  journals,  whether  daily 
or  weekly,  are,  as  a  rule,  a  picked  body  of  men. 
Besides,  they  are  almost  invariably  under  an 
influence  which  tends  to  promote  clearness  and 
52 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

force  of  expression.  In  general,  they  are  par- 
tisans. Not  unfrequently  they  are  strong  and 
even  bitter  partisans.  Consequently,  when  they 
write,  they  write  in  earnest.  The  profession 
attracts,  too,  more  and  more  the  whole  genera- 
tion of  young  and  ardent  spirits  who  seek  to  sway 
the  thoughts  and  lives  of  their  contemporaries. 
In  education,  in  ability  to  express  themselves, 
even  in  the  technical  knowledge  of  the  language 
itself,  they  are  as  a  class  far  superior  to  those 
who  set  out  to  criticise  their  English.  The 
dangers  to  be  anticipated  from  that  quarter  are 
really  little  more  than  creations  of  the  imagina- 
tion. Of  course  newspapers  are  the  first  to 
spread  far  and  wide  the  formations  which  are 
constantly  springing  up  in  a  language  possessed 
of  vitality.  They  bring  to  the  notice  of  large 
numbers  the  new  words  and  locutions  which 
are  proposed  for  use.  In  consequence  they  may 
hasten  their  adoption;  but  their  adoption  is  in- 
evitable if  they  are  really  needed.  If  not,  they 
are  little  likely  to  maintain  themselves.  If  they 
do  not  drop  out  of  use  entirely,  they  are  reason- 
ably certain  to  undergo  in  time  that  process  of 
difEerentiation  of  meaning  which  adds  resources 
to  the  speech  by  imparting  to  a  new  term  a 
special  signification. 

At  this  point  attention  must  be  called  to  th? 
S3 


THE    STANDARD    QF    USAGE 

falsity  of  the  belief,  once  widely  and  perhaps 
generally  entertained,  that  the  inrush  of  new 
words  and  phrases  into  a  language  is  evidence  of 
the  influences  at  work  in  it  tending  to  produce 
corruption.  Men,  it  was  held,  should  be  content 
with  what  sufficed  their  fathers.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  number  of  new  locutions  which  at 
any  given  time  are  presenting  themselves  for 
admission  into  a  tongue  is  a  pretty  accurate  in- 
dication of  the  degree  of  intellectual  activity 
prevailing  among  those  who  speak  it.  Com- 
munities shut  off  entirely  from  contact  with  the 
outside  world,  sharing  neither  in  its  thoughts, 
its  desires,  nor  its  acquisitions,  have  no  need  of 
additions  to  their  speech.  As  the  amount  of 
knowledge  is  never  increased,  nor  the  circle  of 
ideas  enlarged,  the  same  words  do  duty  from 
father  to  son  for  successive  generations.  But 
the  moment  this  mental  torpor  is  broken  up,  the 
mioment  men  fall  under  the  influence  of  new  in- 
terests, new  feelings,  new  thoughts,  they  find 
the  need  of  an  ampler  vocabulary  to  express 
themselves  fully  or  more  vigorously,  and  some- 
times to  express  themselves  at  all.  The  large- 
ness of  the  number  of  words  struggling  for  en- 
trance into  a  language  is  a  sign  of  its  health,  not 
of  its  decay.  To  these  aspirants,  indeed,  the 
words  of  Scripture  are  specially  applicable — 
54 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen.  Out  of 
the  anny  of  terms  that  offer  themselves  for  ad- 
mission in  every  generation,  but  a  very  limited 
number  find  lodgment  in  the  speech.  Nor  do 
these,  save  in  the  rarest  of  instances,  displace  or 
make  obsolete  those  already  there.  The  fun- 
damental error  which  vitiated  the  conclusions 
of  Swift  and  his  contemporaries  consisted  in  their 
belief  that  the  language  was  steadily  moving 
in  a  straight  line  away  from  its  sources.  Hence 
it  followed  that,  unless  it  became  what  they 
called  fixed,  their  own  writings  would  in  process 
of  time  become  unintelligible.  They  complained 
accordingly  that  length  of  fame  was  denied  to 
modern  writers.  These  could  hope  to  live  at 
best  but  a  bare  threescore  years.  As  Pope  ex- 
pressed it  and  illustrated  it  by  an  example, 

"  Our  sons  their  fathers'  failing  language  see 
And  such  as  Chaucer  is,  shall  Dryden  be." 

The  men  of  that  period  had  not  the  slightest 
conception  of  the  conservative  influence  ex- 
erted over  speech  by  a  great  literature  once 
firmly  established.  From  that  the  language 
never  moves  far.  About  that  it  may  be  said  to 
revolve,  and  the  words  and  phrases  employed  by 
great  writers  go  but  little  out  of  use  or  of  fashion 
so  long  as  no  disturbing  external  forces  interfere 
with  the  existence  of  the  language  itself. 
5S 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

This  consideration  bears  only  indirectly  upon 
the  main  subject ;  but  it  places  us  in  a  position 
to  take  a  farther  step.  ^  The  various  expressions 
criticised  by  Swift  and  Beattie  and  Landor  con- 
stitute but  a  pitiful  handful  of  the  number  that 
have  from  time  to  time  been  denounced — often, 
too,  by  men  of  ability  —  as  barbarisms  and 
corruptions.  Yet  nearly  all  of  them  are  now 
employed  unhesitatingly  by  those  who  are  en- 
gaged in  pointing  out  the  present  perils  of  the 
same  sort  which  threaten  the  speech.  Or- 
dinarily, too,  they  are  employed  in  complete 
ignorance  of  their  once  scandalous  reputation. 
Indeed,  no  more  curious  chapter  in  the  history 
of  our  tongue  could  be  furnished  than  one  giving 
a  complete  account  of  the  words  in  common  use 
to  which  on  their  first  appearance  exception  has 
been  taken,  ranging  all  the  way  from  mere 
disapproval  to  severest  condemnation.  There 
can  be  no  question  as  to  the  fact  that  during  its 
history  the  language  has  absorbed  very  many 
locutions  and  constructions  which,  according  to 
the  purists  of  the  past,  were  destined  if  adopted 
to  prove  its  bane.  There  is  not,  however,  any 
evidence  that  its  health  has  suffered  the  slight- 
est in  consequence.  This  condition  of  things 
naturally  suggests  the  suspicion  that  there  must 
be  some  flaw  in  the  reasoning  which  leads  men 

56 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

to  look  with  ceaseless  anxiety  upon  the  future  of 
the  tongue.  It  awakens  the  hope  that,  after  all, 
English  may  escape  the  ruin  to  which  it  is  logi- 
cally doomed, in  the  opinion  of  particular  persons, 
if  they  fail  to  have  their  own  way  as  to  what  it 
should  accept  or  reject.  The  hope  may  be  con- 
verted into  certainty  if  it  can  be  shown  that  all 
the  alarm  about  the  language  is  based  upon  utter 
misconception  of  what  the  real  agencies  are 
which  impair  the  efficiency  and  purity  of  speech. 
This  involves  the  comprehension  of  two  points. 
The  first  is  that,  strictly  speaking,  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  language  becoming  corrupt. 
It  is  an  instrument  which  will  be  just  what  those 
who  use  it  choose  to  make  it.  The  words  that 
constitute  it  have  no  real  significance  of  their 
own.  It  is  the  meaning  which  men  put  into 
them  that  gives  them  all  the  efficacy  they  possess. 
Language  does  nothing  more  than  reflect  the 
character  and  the  characteristics  of  those  who 
speak  it.  It  mirrors  their  thoughts  and  feelings, 
their  passions  and  prejudices,  their  hopes  and 
aspirations,  their  aims,  whether  high  or  low. 
In  the  mouth  of  the  bombastic  it  will  be  inflated ; 
in  the  mouth  of  the  illiterate  it  will  be  full  of 
vulgarisms;  in  the  mouth  of  the  precise  it  will 
be  formal  and  pedantic.  If,  therefore,  those  who 
employ  it  as  the  medium  of  conveying  their 
57 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

ideas  lose  all  sense  of  what  is  vigorous  in  action, 
of  what  is  earnest  in  belief,  all  appreciation  of 
what  is  pure  in  taste  and  of  what  is  lofty  in  con- 
duct—  if,  in  fine,  they  become  intellectually 
coarse  and  morally  corrupt — their  speech  may  be 
relied  upon  to  share  in  their  degradation.  But 
the  latter  result  will  never  take  place  until  the 
former  has  previously  manifested  itself.  So  long, 
accordingly,  as  men  take  care  of  themselves 
morally  and  intellectually  the  language  can  be 
safely  left  to  take  care  of  itself.  Never  was  there 
a  more  ridiculous  reversal  of  the  actual  order  of 
events  than  that  contained  in  Landor's  assertion 
that  "no  nation  has  long  survived  the  decrepi- 
tude of  its  language." 

This  is  the  first  point.  The  second  one  is 
that  the  history  of  language  is  the  history  of 
corruptions — using  that  term  in  the  sense  in 
which  it  is  constantly  employed  by  those  who 
are  stigmatizing  by  it  the  new  words  and  phrases 
and  constructions  to  which  they  take  excep- 
tion. Every  one  of  us  to-day  is  employing  ex- 
pressions which  either  outrage  the  rules  of  strict 
grammar,  or  disregard  the  principles  of  analogy, 
or  belong  by  their  origin  to  what  we  now  deem  the 
worst  sort  of  vulgarisms.  These  so-called  corrup- 
tions are  found  everywhere  in  the  vocabulary 
and  in  nearly  all  the  parts  of  speech.  Words 
58 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

are  spelled  and  pronounced  in  utter  defiance  of 
their  derivation.  Letters  have  been  added  to 
them  as  a  result  of  slovenly  pronunciation.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  have  been  deprived  in  the 
same  way  of  letters,  and  even  syllables,  to  which 
they  are  entitled,  and  the  full  proper  form  has 
in  some  instances  been  replaced  by  a  mere  frag- 
ment of  the  original.  Plurals  of  nouns  have 
become  singulars,  and  singulars  in  turn  have 
become  plurals.  Yet  a  return  to  what  is  the 
theoretically  correct  usage  would  seem  like  a  re- 
turn to  barbarism.  Any  attempt  of  that  nature 
would  be  sure  to  be  denounced  as  an  assault  upon 
the  purity  of  the  tongue.  Even  if  permitted  in 
any  given  case,  it  would  produce  upon  most  of 
us  the  effect  of  something  peculiarly  grotesque. 
In  the  grammar  of  two  of  the  parts  of  speech — 
the  pronoun  and  the  verb — the  most  flagrant  ex- 
amples of  these  so  -  called  corruptions  are  ex- 
hibited. All  that  can  be  done  here  is  to  furnish 
a  few  specimens.  In  the  former,  the  confusion 
between  the  nominative  and  the  objective  case, 
which  shows  itself  in  the  personal  and  relative 
pronouns,  has  succeeded  with  the  plural  of  the 
second  person  in  establishing  the  original  da- 
tive and  accusative  as  the  regular  nominative. 
Hence  we  all,  ungrammatically  from  the  purist 
point  of  view,  say  you  instead  of  the  strictly 
59 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

correct  ye.  No  better  account  can  be  given  of 
the  verb  system.  Etymologically  considered, 
that  is  little  more  than  a  mass  of  corruption. 
In  the  course  of  their  history  the  two  conjuga- 
tions have  been  so  confounded  that,  were  it  not 
for  the  light  thrown  upon  them  by  comparative 
philology,  we  should  be  unable  to  bring  any 
order  out  of  the  chaos  which  has  come  to  prevail. 
To  all  this  add  the  fact  that  in  the  case  of  several 
words  the  literary  language  now  uses  a  corrupted 
form,  while  the  really  proper  one  has  been  rele- 
gated to  the  speech  of  the  uneducated.  These 
are  but  a  few  of  the  many  abuses — if  so  we  choose 
to  call  them — which  abound  on  every  side.  Yet 
we  take  great  credit  to  ourselves  for  falling  foul 
of  a  particular  term  or  locution  which  exhibits 
some  fault  of  formation  or  of  derivation.  In  so 
doing  we  feel  that  we  are  acting  as  champions  of 
the  purity  of  speech.  Yet  all  the  while  we  are 
using  with  perfect  freedom,  and  in  utter  uncon- 
sciousness of  their  etymologically  corrupt  charac- 
ter, other  words  and  expressions  which  are  subject 
to  the  very  criticism  in  which  we  have  indulged. 
Proof  will  naturally  be  demanded  of  a  prop- 
osition so  sweeping.  Out  of  the  host  of  ex- 
amples which  present  themselves  it  is  well  to 
select  one  which  has  about  it  the  interest  of 
present  controversy.  Let  us  take  our  first  illus- 
60 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

tration  from  the  verb  system.  This  abounds, 
as  has  been  said,  in  corruptions  which  time 
and  authority  have  converted  into  the  best  pos- 
sible usage,  often,  indeed,  into  the  only  possi- 
ble usage.  In  it  we  have  now  the  case  of  a 
new  participial  form  which  may  fairly  be  con- 
sidered as  a  candidate  for  acceptance  or  rejec- 
tion. But  before  its  exact  status,  however  well 
known  to  many,  can  be  made  clear  to  all,  two 
or  three  preliminary  explanations  must  be  given. 
The  English  verb,  like  that  of  its  sister  Teu- 
tonic languages,  is  divided  into  two  conjuga- 
tions, called  respectively  the  strong  or  old,  and 
the  weak  or  new.  One  characteristic  of  the 
former  is  here  to  be  specially  noted.  Its  past 
participle  always  had  originally  the  termination 
-en.  In  modern  English  this  ending  has  in 
some  instances  been  regularly  retained,  as  in 
given,  taken,  fallen,  and  risen.  In  others  it  has 
been  dropped  entirely,  as  in  sprung,  sung,  and 
drunk,  the  present  representatives  of  the  earlier 
sprungen,  sungen,  and  drunken.  In  others  again 
the  e  has  been  dropped  while  the  -n  has  been 
retained,  as  in  horn,  torn,  and  known.  In  still 
others  the  verb  has  kept  the  fuller  and  the  shorter 
form  side  by  side,  as  in  eaten  and  eat,  bitten  and 
hit,  gotten  and  got.  Finally,  there  are  a  few 
verbs  which  have  dropped  the  original  par- 
6i 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

ticipial  form  almost  entirely,  if  not  entirely,  and 
replaced  it  by  the  form  of  the  preterite,  as  held 
for  holden,  sat  for  sitten,  and  stood  for  stonden. 
These  last,  it  hardly  needs  to  be  said,  are  cor- 
ruptions of  a  peculiarly  atrocious  character. 
None  of  these  changes,  however,  affect  the  fact 
that  -en  is  the  distinctive  termination  of  the 
past  participle  of  the  strong  conjugation.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  past  participle  of  the  verbs 
of  the  weak  conjugation  regularly  ends  and  has 
always  ended  in  -d  or  -t. 

With  this  explanation  we  are  in  a  position  to 
consider  the  case  of  the  disputed  form  selected. 
This  is  proven.  The  verb  to  which  it  belongs  is 
a  verb  of  the  weak  conjugation.  The  past  par- 
ticiple is  therefore  properly  proved.  In  con- 
sequence proven  is  etymologically  a  corruption^ 
It  came  into  the  literary  language,  so  far  as  it 
exists  in  it,  from  the  northern  English  dialects. 
These  from  an  early  period  were  fond  of  adding 
the  strong  participial  termination  -en  to  the 
root  of  weak  verbs.  The  verdict  in  Scotch 
criminal  trials  of  "not  proven"  was  in  all  prob- 
ability the  particular  agency  which  made  this 
form  familiar  to  southern  ears.  Apparently  it 
was  not  until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury that  the  use  of  it  became  distinctly  notice- 
able in  the  speech  of  the  South  of  Great  Britain. 
62 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

But  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  we  find 
it  even  then  occasionally  employed.  "You 
have  proven  me  busy  but  I  was  comparatively 
at  leisure,"  wrote  Lord  Sheffield,  in  1791,  to  his 
intimate  friend  Gibbon.^ 

Every  scholar  will  admit  the  fact  that,  etymo- 
logically,  proven  is  a  corruption.  Accordingly, 
why  should  not  its  use  be  debarred  at  once  and 
forever  ?  But  questions  of  usage  are  not  settled 
in  this  easy,  ofThand  way.  The  men  who  prefer 
to  employ  the  word  may  naturally  ask,  Why  not 
make  your  reformation  complete  before  you 
object  to  the  introduction  of  this  particular 
form  ?  Hide  and  chide  are  also  strictly  verbs  of 
the  weak  conjugation.  In  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, and  perhaps  a  little  earlier,  they  added  to 
their  weak  past  participles  hid  and  chid  the  ter- 
mination -en  of  the  strong  past  participle.  In 
this  way  hidden  and  chidden  were  formed.  Both 
are  certainly  corruptions  of  a  character  not 
essentially  different  from  proven.  But  they 
have  become  so  sanctioned  by  the  best  usage 
that  we  no  longer  think  of  disputing  their  cor- 
rectness; in  fact,  but  few  are  aware  of  the  fact 
that  etymologically  they  are  improper.  Their 
history  is  repeating  itself  in  the  word  now  under 

^Private  Letters  of  Edward  Gibbon,  vol.  n.,  p.  241. 
London,  1896. 

63 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

discussion.  The  adoption  or  rejection  of  proven 
is  not  a  matter  to  be  decided  by  scholars,  but  by 
the  attitude  assumed  towards  it  by  the  great 
writers  of  our  speech.  At  this  time  usage  is 
discordant.  Some  authors  of  repute  employ  it; 
some  avoid  it.  In  Tennyson's  works  it  first 
appeared  in  Aylmer's  Field,  published  in  1864. 
After  that  date  it  occurred  pretty  frequently — 
a  fact  showing  that  his  choice  of  it  was  deliberate. 
It  has  also  been  used  by  Bulwer,  by  Lowell,  by 
Thackeray,  by  Herbert  Spencer,  and  doubtless 
by  many  others.  It  is  more  than  likely  that  it  is 
destined  to  establish  itself  permanently  in  the 
language  of  literature.  It  certainly  looks  now 
as  if  the  large  majority  of  the  users  of  speech  will 
prefer  to  sin  with  Tennyson  and  Thackeray  and 
Lowell  than  to  be  etymologically  virtuous  v/ith 
all  the  grammarians.  If  such  be  the  result,  we 
can  rest  assured  that  the  language  will  be  no 
more  ruined  by  the  adoption  of  proven  than  it 
has  been  ruined  by  the  previous  adoption  of 
hidden  and  chidden.  It  may  be  worth  while  to 
add  that  forms  of  a  similar  nature  occur  not  un- 
frequently  in  our  literature.  The  **well-lan- 
guaged  Daniel,"  for  instance,  has  bereaven  in  his 
Civil  Wars ;  Milton  has  paven  in  Comus ;  Kipling, 
in  his  Second  Jungle  Book,  speaks  of  "that  dim 
isLT-litten  sky."  All  of  these  are  of  the  same 
64 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

character  as  proven,  and  any  one  of  them  may 
at  some  time  find  its  way  into  general  use. 

Let  us  now  take  up  the  consideration  of  one 
of  the  corruptions  which  has  Hved  through  its 
day  of  trial  and  has  been  long  received  into  the 
best  literary  society.  The  stor}?-  is  one  fairly 
well  known,  but  the  lesson  it  enforces  is  so  im- 
portant that  it  will  bear  repetition.  It  is  the 
abbreviation  mob,  so  hated  of  Swift.  No  word 
in  our  tongue  is  theoretically  worthy  of  much 
severer  reprobation.  It  combines  in  itself  about 
all  the  faults  which  can  bring  disrepute  to  a 
neologism.  By  origin  it  is  not  merely  slang,  but 
it  belongs  to  a  peculiarly  odious  kind  of  slang — 
that  is,  the  cant  of  the  learned  taken  up  by  the 
mass  of  people.  Furthermore,  it  is  an  abbrevia- 
tion not  essentially  different  in  character  from 
that  which  has  given  us  gent  for  'gentleman' 
and  pants  for  'pantaloons.*  It  has  been  so  cut 
down  that  did  we  not  know  its  history  it  would 
be  an  absolutely  hopeless  task  to  trace  its  der- 
ivation. It  is  nothing  but  a  fragment  of  the 
full  Latin  original  mobile  vulgus — 'the  fickle 
common  people.'  First  the  noun  vulgus  was 
dropped.  That  left  mobile.  In  the  latter  half 
of  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  this  word  came  into 
wide  use  as  the  general  designation  of  the  rab- 
ble. Especially  was  this  the  case  during  the 
65 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

tumultuous  scenes  that  accompanied  the  stormy 
strife  caused  by  the  pretended  Popish  Plot. 
In  process  of  time  it  became  one  of  the  fashion- 
able slang  words  which  every  social  aspirant 
made  it  a  point  to  admire  and  employ.  For 
illustration,  it  does  not  occur  in  the  dramatist 
Shad  well's  earlier  works;  but  in  his  Squire  of 
Alsatia,  brought  out  in  1688,  one  of  the  charac- 
ters from  the  country  is  told  by  his  city  cousin 
that  as  soon  as  his  clothes  and  liveries  come 
home,  and  he  shall  appear  rich  and  splendid  like 
himself,  *'the  mobile  shall  worship  thee."  **The 
mobile,"  is  the  reply;  "that  is  pretty."  Such 
was  the  state  of  feeling  which  brought  about  the 
general  prevalence  of  the  word. 

Mobile  lasted  certainly  down  to  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century;  but  by  many  it 
was  soon  found  to  be  too  long.  Accordingly 
the  last  two  syllables  were  discarded.  Early 
in  the  reign  of  William  and  Mary  mob  became 
a  generally  recognized  form.  Swift,  as  we  have 
seen,  abominated  it  to  his  dying  day.  Addison 
sympathized  with  this  feeling.  In  No.  135  of 
the  Spectator,  mob  is  put  down  by  him  as  one 
of  the  ridiculous  words  which  he  fears  will  in 
time  be  looked  upon  as  part  of  the  speech. 
There  must  have  been  then  a  host  of  minor  de- 
fenders of  the  purity  of  our  tongue  who  bewailed 
66 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

its  increasing  use,  and  pointed  to  that  fact  as 
evidence  of  the  growing  degeneracy  of  the  lan- 
guage. The  prejudice  against  the  word  lasted 
in  places  to  a  late  period.  According  to  Lord 
Holland,  as  reported  by  Moore,  Fox  looked 
upon  it  as  not  really  belonging  to  the  speech. 
Yet  by  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century 
it  had  been  long  in  use  with  the  best  writers, 
and,  it  is  needless  to  say,  has  so  continued.  Ad- 
dison's fears  have  been  realized.  The  abbre- 
viated form  has  thoroughly  established  itself. 
Accordingly  a  word  which  their  predecessors 
stigmatized  as  a  corruption  of  the  vilest  kind  is 
now  used  unhesitatingly  by  the  most  precise  of 
modern  purists.  One  reason  for  its  prevalence 
is  obvious.  It  came  to  supply  a  very  genuine 
want.  There  is  no  other  single  word  that  con- 
veys definitely  the  idea  of  a  particular  sort  of 
riotous  assemblage.  Still,  in  these  matters  it 
must  be  conceded  that  language  is  largely 
capricious  in  the  preferences  it  exhibits,  unless 
we  choose  to  credit  it  with  possessing  the  keen- 
est sense  of  what  it  needs.  It  adopts  one  form 
and  rejects  another  according  as  it  suits  its  will, 
or  perhaps  its  whim.  Good  usage  which  frowns 
upon  pants,  which  stigmatizes  gents  as  utterly 
odious,  or  designates  by  it  human  beings  of  a 
particularly  odious  species,  would  regard  the  loss 

67 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

of  the  similar  formation  mob  as  impairing  the 
resources  of  the  speech. 

In  truth,  in  this  matter  of  so-called  corruptions 
we  are  all  a  bundle  of  inconsistencies.  We  con- 
demn in  one  breath  what  we  approve  in  another. 
A  certain  form  of  some  particular  word  we  look 
upon  as  a  vulgarism  of  the  worst  kind;  a  pre- 
cisely similar  form  of  another  word  we  regard  as 
the  only  possibly  correct  one.  We  hear  oc- 
casionally from  the  lips  of  the  uneducated 
drownded  as  the  past  tense  of  drown,  itself  fre- 
quently pronounced  by  the  same  persons  as 
drownd.  We  properly  consider  its  use  as  an 
evidence  of  illiteracy.  There  is  no  question  that 
it  has  all  the  marks  of  those  corruptions  which, 
according  to  some,  are  ultimately  to  ruin  our 
speech.  A  letter  has  been  added  to  the  end  of 
the  word  which  destroys  the  correct  pronuncia- 
tion, and  furthermore  causes  the  form  to  deviate 
from  its  original.  This  is  perfectly  true.  Yet 
it  is  the  mere  accident  of  usage  that  all  of  us  are 
not  saying  it  now  as  well  as  merely  a  certain 
number  of  the  uneducated.  It  was  employed 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  by 
reputable  writers.  Late  in  the  latter  it  appears ; 
for  instance,  in  Pilgrim's  Progress,  in  the  original 
edition  of  1678.  There  Christian  is  represented 
as  telling  Pliable  something  of  what  they  shall 
68 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

see  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  the  following 
words: 

"There  shall  we  see  men  that  by  the  world 
were  cut  in  pieces,  burned  in  flames,  drownded 
in  the  seas,  for  the  love  that  they  bare  to  the 
Lord  of  the  place,  all  well  and  cloathed  with 
immortality  as  with  a  garment." 

Had  during  those  centu  ries  the  form  been  gener- 
ally adopted  by  writers  of  the  highest  grade,  whose 
works  were  regarded  by  all  as  authorities,  every 
educated  man  at  the  present  day  would  be  saying 
drownd  and  drawnded  for  drown  and  drowned, 
and  withal  be  ignorant  that  he  was  using  what 
was  in  its  origin  a  corruption  of  the  worst  kind. 

But,  after  all,  say  the  upholders  of  purity, 
this  form  did  not  establish  itself.  It  effected  an 
entrance,  indeed,  but  it  was  too  gross  a  corrup- 
tion to  be  permanently  endured.  The  literary 
language  came  in  time  to  recognize  its  real  char- 
acter, and  in  consequence  left  the  employment 
of  it  exclusively  to  the  unlettered.  The  ex- 
ample, therefore,  instead  of  sustaining  the  view 
put  forth,  proves  that  its  contrary  is  the  only 
true  position  to  take.  A  corruption  may  through 
carelessness  or  ignorance  creep  into  the  speech. 
There  it  may  maintain  itself  for  a  while.  But 
its  nature  cannot  always  continue  unknown. 
Once  let  the  attention  of  the  users  of  language 
69 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

be  called  to  it,  and  its  ultimate  proscription  is 
merely  a  question  of  time. 

This  would  be  a  most  comfortable  doctrine  to 
hold  could  the  facts  only  be  persuaded  to  ac- 
commodate themselves  to  it.  Let  us  concede 
that  drownded  is  the  worst  of  English,  and  that 
its  introduction,  had  it  been  effected,  would 
have  wrought,  so  far  as  its  influence  went,  an 
irreparable  injury  to  the  speech.  What  are  we, 
then,  to  say  of  corruptions  resembling  it  pre- 
cisely which  all,  educated  and  uneducated  alike, 
use  without  scruple.  The  d  of  drownded  is  an 
objectionable  and  unauthorized  letter.  There- 
fore this  form  of  the  preterite  is  properly  de- 
nounced by  us  as  a  vulgarism.  But  this  same 
letter  has  been  added  to  other  words  with  the 
like  result  of  destroying  the  original  pronuncia- 
tion, and  hiding,  as  far  as  it  can,  the  derivation. 
Let  us  take  two  verbs  as  we  find  them  in  the 
following  lines  from  Chaucer: 

"A  harp 
That  souned  bothe  well  and  sharp." 

'' Lene  me  a  mark,"  quoth  he,  "but  dayes  three." 

Here  are  correct  forms  of  two  most  common 

English   words,   sound   and   lend.     The   former 

came  to  us  originally  as  a  noun  through  the 

70 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

Anglo-Saxon  from  the  Latin  son-us.  In  Middle 
English  it  appears  properly  as  soun.  The  latter 
verb  comes  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  IcBn-an.  In 
neither  has  the  existing  -d  any  right  to  the  place 
it  holds.  Btit  after  Chaucer's  time  the  unau- 
thorized letter  established  itself  in  these  two 
words.  The  corruption  doubtless  showed  itself 
first  in  the  popular  speech,  and  from  that  grad- 
ually made  its  way  into  the  language  of  litera- 
ture. The  forms  with  -d  are  now  the  only  ones 
recognized  by  the  English-speaking  world.  Com- 
paratively few  of  us  know  that  they  are  strictly 
corruptions;  that, for  instance, in  saying  sound- 
ed we  are  using  a  formation  precisely  similar 
in  character  and  origin  to  drownded.  The  ex- 
amples just  given  are  very  far  from  being  the 
only  ones  that  could  be  cited  of  words  which 
have  assumed  to  themselves  final  letters  to 
which  they  are  not  entitled;  but  the  object  in 
view  aimed  at  here  is  not  to  furnish  a  catalogue 
but  to  illustrate  a  principle. 

Even  this  is  not  the  worst.  It  is  bad  enough 
for  the  educated  to  use  a  corruption  of  the  very 
kind  which  they  reprobate  in  the  uneducated. 
But  a  lower  deep  is  reached  when  we  find  them 
employing  what  is  really  a  corrupt  form,  leaving 
the  one  strictly  correct  to  the  illiterate,  and  then 
pointing  it  out  as  an  evidence  of  their  illiteracy. 

,6  71 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

Even  in  our  preference  of  corruption  we  are  not 
consistent;  for  while  we  accept  it  in  one  case,  we 
discard  it  in  another  which  is  precisely  similar. 
Let  us  take  for  illustration  the  four  words  again, 
along,  amid,  and  among — all  at  the  outset  both 
adverbs  and  prepositions.  In  addition,  besides 
the  simple  form  all  had  a  corresponding  one 
with  the  adverbial  ending  -es,  giving  us  in  con- 
sequence—  variations  of  spelling  being  disre- 
garded— againes,  alonges,  amiddes,  and  amonges. 
Each  one  of  these  latter,  either  in  the  fourteenth 
or  the  fifteenth  or  the  sixteenth  century,  added 
to  this  ending  in  -es  the  letter  t.  It  was,  of  course, 
a  corruption.  Not  only  did  it  establish  itself, 
however,  but  the  corrupt  forms  terminating 
in  -St  supplanted  in  the  language  of  literature  the 
correct  forms  terminating  in  -es.  Consequently, 
in  using  against,  alongst,  amidst,  and  amongst, 
we  are  using  forms  which  have  no  etymological 
justification  for  their  existence. 

But  we  did  not  stop  here.  The  history  of 
these  four  words  shows  that  not  the  slightest 
consistency  has  been  observed  in  their  treat- 
ment. For  a  long  while  the  corrupt  forms  kept 
their  place  side  by  side  with  the  simple  forms, 
and  were  used  interchangeably  both  as  adverbs 
and  prepositions.  But  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury alongst — never,  in  fact,  so  common  as  the 
72 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

others — practically  died  out  altogether.  Along 
came  in  consequence  to  be  the  sole  form  em- 
ployed both  as  adverb  and  as  preposition.  But 
though  we  have  discarded  alongst,  we  still  retain 
amidst  and  amongst  in  conjunction  with  amid  and 
among,  exhibiting,  besides,  a  preference,  on  the 
whole,  for  the  corrupt  form  in  the  case  of  the 
one  and  for  the  simple  form  in  the  case  of  the 
other.  Furthermore,  while  we  continue  to  treat 
amid  and  among  as  prepositions,  it  is  only  the 
uneducated  that  can  venture  so  to  employ 
again — usually  pronounced  agin — instead  of  the 
corrupted  form  against.  "He  fought  agin  him" 
is  a  method  of  expression  limited  to  the  ver- 
nacular of  the  unlettered.  Yet,  as  the  account 
just  given  shows,  the  form  of  the  preposition  em- 
ployed in  it  is  purer  than  that  which  has  taken 
its  place.  Once,  too,  it  was  in  the  best  literary 
use.  In  Chaucer's  description  of  the  Knight, 
for  instance,  we  are  told — 

"  This  ilk^  worthy  knight  had  been  also 
Sometime  with  the  lord  of  Palatye 
Again  another  heathen  in  Turkey e." 

As  a  further  illustration  it  may  be  added  that 
the  fortune  of  while  bears  a  close  resemblance  to 
that  of  these  words  just  described.  Here  whiles, 
the  allied  form  with  the  adverbial  ending  -eSy 
73 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

took  to  itself  the  letter  t.  So  doing,  it  expe- 
rienced the  usual  fate.  It  was  supplanted  by 
the  corrupt  form  it  had  generated  by  this  addi- 
tion, and  has  practically  disappeared;  but  whilst 
exists  to  the  present  day  along  with  while. 
Finally  it  may  be  said  that  all  these  words  end- 
ing in  -st,  which  we  use  with  perfect  propriety, 
are  of  exactly  the  same  nature  as  wonst  or  wunst, 
a  vulgarism  occasionally  heard.  This  corrup- 
tion is  produced  by  adding  t  to  once,  which  in 
turn  is  itself  a  corruption  of  ones. 

In  the  case  of  individual  words  there  is,  indeed, 
little  limit  to  the  corruptions  of  various  sorts 
which  have  crept  into  the  speech.  Men  would 
be  astounded  were  an  exhaustive  presentation 
made  them  of  the  facts.  Here  can  be  given 
only  a  few  of  the  more  noticeable.  The  very 
word  astound  is  itself  an  example.  Like  a  num- 
ber of  them  it  has  taken  unto  itself  a  c^  to  which 
it  is  not  entitled.  But  there  is  nothing  peculiar 
about  the  assumption  of  this  particular  letter. 
It  was  in  the  sixteenth  century  that  an  unau- 
thorized b  was  added  to  lim^  and  num.^  In  the 
seventeenth  century  it  succeeded  in  establishing 
itself    firmly.     Consequently,   while   we    never 

*  Anglo-Saxon  Um. 

^  Past  participle  of  old  English  strong  verb  nim  (en) ; 
nomen,  nome,  num. 

74 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

pronounce  the  final  letter,  we  religiously  write 
the  words  as  limb  and  numb.  Thumb  got  this 
useless  b  earlier,  but  had  no  more  right  to  it  than 
the  two  others.^  It  was  in  this  same  sixteenth 
century  that  a  b  was  added  to  crum}  There  is 
nothing  that  can  be  pleaded  in  justification  of 
the  proceeding.  Crumb,  however,  maintained 
itself  alongside  of  the  correct  form  for  the 
following  centuries  and  now  threatens  to  dis- 
place it  entirely.  The  derivative  crumble  has  a 
reason  to  show  for  its  retention  of  the  intruding 
letter,  for  in  it,  unlike  its  primitive,  the  b  is 
pronounced.  This  is  also  true  of  the  final  t 
the  appending  of  which  has  given  us  forms 
like  the  modern  ancient,^  cormorant,'^  pheasant^ 
tyrant,^  and  others,  in  place  of  their  etymologi- 
cally  correct  originals.  In  all  these  instances 
pronunciation  has  fixed  permanently  the  cor- 
rupt form. 

But  it  is  not  in  the  final  syllable  alone  that 
this  assumed  linguistic  debasement  has  mani- 
fested itself.  A  cockney  h  appears  in  hostage'^ 
and  hermit^  though  the  latter  has  still  as  a  variant 

*  Anglo-Saxon  puma.  ^  Anglo-Saxon  crume. 

^  Old  French  ancien.  *  Old  French  corntoran. 

^  Old  French  fesan,  fesant  from  Latin  Phasian-us. 

*  Old  French  tyran,  tirant  from  Latin  tyrann-us. 

'  Old  French  ostage,  hostage  remotely  from  Latin  obses. 

*  Old  French  ermite,  hermite  from  Latin  eremita. 

75 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

the  etymologically  more  correct  but  less  favored 
eremite.  Nor  has  the  body  itself  of  the  word 
been  saved  from  this  contamination.  In  the 
sixteenth  century  an  unauthorized  h  established 
itself  in  ghost}  An  ti  has  been  inserted  into 
messenger'^  and  nightingale^  and  passenger,"^  a 
d  into  kindred,^  jaundice,^  and  thunder?  The 
insertion  of  g  into  imprenahle^  has  given  us  the 
corrupt  form  impregnable.  There  are  those  who 
will  recall  what  grief  the  second  r  of  bridegroom^ 
caused  Noah  Webster.  In  consequence  of  its 
insertion,  he  said  that  the  word  really  meant  a 
bride's  hostler.  Thereupon  he  wanted  us  all 
to  go  back  to  the  original  bridguma — in  which 
guma  means  *  man  ' — and  use  bridegoom.  So  he 
printed  the  word  in  the  edition  of  his  Dictionary 
which  came  out  in  1828.  The  insertion  of  the 
r  lay  heavy  on  his  heart.  ''Such  a  gross  cor- 
ruption or  blunder,"  he  wrote,  "ought  not  to 
remain  a  reproach  to  philology."     He  could  not 


^  Anglo-Saxon  gost. 

^  Middle  English  messager  from  Old  French  messager. 

'  Anglo-Saxon  nihtgale. 

*  Middle  English  passager  from  Old  French  passager. 
^  Old    English    kin  and  reden. 

'Old  French  jaunice  from  jaune,  'yellow.* 
'  Anglo-Saxon  punor. 

*  Old  French  imprenable  from  prendre,  to  take. 

*  Anglo-Saxon  brydguma. 

76 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING   CORRUPT? 

be  consoled  by  the  fact  that  though  the  form 
bridegroom  did  not  make  its  appearance  until 
the  sixteenth  century — the  final  word  of  the 
original  compound  having  died  out  —  no  one 
ever  attached  to  the  personage  so  designated 
any  debasing  associations  connected  with  the 
stable.  Yet  Webster,  while  feeling  that  the 
second  r  of  this  word  was  a  reproach  to  philology, 
exhibited  the  usual  inconsistency  of  the  pro- 
fessional purist.  He  appeared  not  in  the  least 
disturbed  by  the  insertion  of  this  same  letter  into 
vagrant.  This  word,  it  hardly  needs  to  be  said, 
is  a  corruption.  If  we  insist  on  deferring  to 
etymology,  we  all  ought  to  say  vagant,^  as  we 
properly  do  when  it  appears  as  the  latter 
part  of  extravagant.  Derivation,  indeed,  real 
or  assumed,  has  played  strange  freaks  in 
vitiating  the  correct  forms  of  words.  Under 
the  erroneous  impression  that  its  final  syllable 
had  something  to  do  with  light,  the  correct 
delite  was  transformed  into  the  corrupt  delight. 
A  similar  blunder  of  belief  has  given  the  corrupt 
form  sovereign^  in  place  of  the  correct  sovran, 
because  its  last  syllable  was  supposed  to  be 
somehow  connected  with  reign.  Foreign  in  a 
similar  way  has  inserted  a  g  into  the  earlier 

^  Latin  vagans,  vagant-is. 

^  Old  French  soverain  from  Middle  Latin  super-anus. 

77 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

jorein}  Could^  has  further  adopted  an  illegiti- 
mate /  by  a  false  analogy  with  would  and  should. 
This  is  the  kind  of  melancholy  story — if  we 
choose  to  consider  it  melancholy — that  meets  us 
on  every  side.  Whichever  way  we  look  we  light 
upon  corruptions  which  usage  has  made  familiar 
and  custom  has  made  correct ;  for  the  examples 
here  given  could  be  multijjlied  indefinitely. 
The  lesson  such  a  survey  enforces  is  important ; 
but  it  must  not  be  misunderstood.  It  does  not 
release  any  man  from  striving  to  make  his  own 
usage  conform  to  the  best  usage,  so  far  as  he  is 
able  to  ascertain  it.  It  does  not  deter  him 
from  putting  forth  every  possible  effort  to  pre- 
vent the  introduction  of  erroneous  or  objec- 
tionable forms  which  are  creeping  in.  But  it 
does  teach  him  the  folly  of  the  belief  that  these 
erroneous  forms,  if  once  universally  accepted, 
bring  to  pass  the  ruin  of  the  speech.  Had  that 
been  true  we  should  not  have  had  to  wait  till 
now  to  witness  the  full  accomplishment  of  this 
ever-threatened  woe.  It  should  further  teach 
him  to  be  wary  about  condemning  as  corrupt 
expressions  which  he  hears  generally  from  the 
lips  of  educated  men.  Still  more  should  he  be 
wary  about  pointing  otit  the  errors  which  he 

^  Old  French  forain,  remotely  from  Latin  foras,  '  out- 
of-doors.  '  2  Old  English  coude. 

78 


IS    ENGLISH    BECOMING    CORRUPT? 

finds  or  fancies  he  finds  in  the  writings  of  great 
authors.  In  the  latter  case  his  strictures  are 
more  hkely  to  spring  from  his  own  lack  of  ac- 
quaintance with  what  is  good  usage  than  from 
any  violation  of  it  on  the  part  of  those  he  cen- 
sures. To  understand  a  great  writer's  ignorance 
of  the  language  demands,  therefore,  a  knowledge 
of  the  history  and  development  of  the  words 
and  idioms  he  uses;  and  this  is  not  a  qualifica- 
tion acquired  by  meditation,  by  processes  of 
reasoning,  or  by  consultation  of  one's  sense  of 
the  fitness  of  things. 

In  itself  it  is  right  that  men  should  hold  and 
express  opinions  about  the  propriety  of  usages 
already  existing  or  coming  in,  and  do  all  that  in 
them  lies  to  bring  about  the  rejection  of  what 
they  deem  undesirable.  It  is  right,  too,  that 
the  advice  of  scholars  and  special  students  of  the 
speech  should  be  asked,  and  that  their  views 
in  regard  to  the  adoption  or  exclusion  of  any 
particular  locution  or  any  particular  neologism 
should  receive  the  fullest  consideration.  But 
it  is  a  gross  mistake  to  fancy  that  to  them  ever 
has  been  left  or  ever  can  be  left  the  final  decision 
in  cases  of  doubt.  No  one  can  make  a  thorough 
study  of  language  without  recognizing  the  fal- 
sity of  this  belief.  That  final  decision  invariably 
rests  with  the  whole  body  of  the  cultivated  users 
79 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

of  speech.  They  have  an  unerring  instinct  as  to 
its  necessities.  They  are  a  great  deal  wiser  than 
any  of  their  self -constituted  advisers,  however 
eminent.  Fortunately,  too,  they  have  the 
ability  to  carry  their  wishes  into  effect.  They 
know  what  they  need;  and  they  can  neither  be 
persuaded  out  of  it  nor  bullied  out  of  it.  They 
try  many  things;  they  let  go  very  many  which 
they  try;  but  what  they  approve  they  hold  fast. 
Protests,  no  matter  from  what  quarter  coming, 
are  of  no  avail.  If  they  retain  a  word  or  con- 
struction, it  may  be  generally  taken  for  granted 
that  it  supplies  a  demand  which  really  exists. 
There  is,  indeed,  a  rough  average  sense  in  the 
whole  body  of  cultivated  men  which  brings 
them,  as  it  were  by  instinct,  to  the  same  con- 
clusions which  scholars  reach  by  the  special 
study  of  words  and  constructions.  To  both, 
this  assumed  abstract  purity  of  speech,  about 
which  so  many  are  anxious,  is  felt  to  be  nothing 
but  a  delusion.  No  matter  how  many  of  these 
so-called  corruptions  creep  in,  no  fear  need  be 
entertained  that  the  language  is  going  to  ruin 
in  consequence.  That  result  depends  on  agen- 
cies entirely  different  from  those  which  affect 
the  formation  of  words,  the  rules  of  syntax,  or 
the  construction  of  sentences. 


II 

THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

IN  his  life  of  Story,  Mr.  Henry  James  men- 
tions the  presence  of  the  sculptor  at  a  dinner 
given  in  London  by  the  critic  and  essayist  John 
Forster.  During  the  course  of  it  the  talk 
chanced  to  turn  upon  a  letter  from  Hampden 
to  Sir  John  Elliot  which  had  been  read.  The 
peculiar  beauty  of  its  expression  struck  all 
present.  Story  observed  that  the  English 
language  seemed  no  longer  to  have  its  old  ele- 
gance. This  remark  led  to  an  outburst  from 
the  host.  *'As  soon,"  said  Forster,  "as gram- 
mar is  printed  in  any  language,  it  begins  to  go. 
The  Greeks  had  no  grammar  when  their  best 
works  were  written,  and  the  decline  of  style 
began  with  the  appearance  of  one." 

Forster  has  not  been  the  only  one  to  take 
this  view,  nor  was  he  the  first  to  give  it  utterance. 
Extravagantly  stated  as  it  is,  there  is  in  it  a 
certain  element  of  truth.  The  early  authors  of  a 
tongue  have  in  their  minds  no  thought  of  pos- 
8i 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

sible  censure  from  any  lingtiistic  critic.  Every 
one  does  what  is  right  in  his  own  eyes,  restrained, 
so  far  as  he  is  restrained,  only  by  that  sense  of 
propriety  which  genius  possesses  as  its  birth- 
right and  great  talents  frequently  acquire.  But 
in  later  times,  when  grammars  and  manuals  of 
usage  have  come  to  abound,  there  is  frequent 
consultation  of  them,  or,  rather,  a  constant  dread 
of  violating  rules  which  they  have  promulgated. 
Such  a  method  of  proceeding  is  not  conducive 
to  the  best  results  in  the  matter  of  expression. 
When  men  think  not  so  much  of  what  they  want 
to  say  as  of  how  they  are  going  to  say  it,  what 
they  write  is  fairly  certain  to  lose  something  of 
the  freshness  which  springs  from  unconscious- 
ness. No  one  can  be  expected  to  speak  with  ease 
when  before  his  mind  looms  constantly  the 
prospect  of  possible  criticism  of  the  words  and 
constructions  he  has  employed.  If  grammar, 
or  what  he  considers  grammar,  prevents  him 
from  resorting  to  usages  to  which  he  sees  no 
objection,  it  has  in  one  way  been  harmful  if  in 
another  way  it  has  been  helpful.  Correctness 
rnay  have  been  secured,  but  spontaneity  is  gone. 
(  The  rules  laid  down  for  the  writer's  guidance 
may  be  desirable,  but  they  are  likewise  depress- 
ing. He  thinks  of  himself  as  under  the  charge  of 
a  paternal  government,  and  he  is  not  happy; 
82 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

for  our  race,  in  its  linguistic  as  well  as  in  its 
political  activity,  bears  with  impatience  the 
s^se  of  feeling  itself  governed. 

Such  a  result  would  be  sure  to  follow,  were 
grammars  and  manuals  of  usage  absolutely 
trustworthy.  But  no  such  statement  can  be 
made  of  most  of  them,  if,  indeed,  of  any.  It  is 
an  unfortunate  fact  that  since  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  works  of  this  nature 
first  began  to  be  much  in  evidence  and  to  exert 
distinct  influence,  far  the  larger  proportion  of 
them  have  been  produced  by  men  who  had 
little  acquaintance  with  the  practice  of  the  best 
writers  and  even  less  with  the  history  and 
development  of  grammatical  forms  and  con- 
structions. Their  lack  of  this  knowledge  led 
them  frequently  to  put  in  its  place  assertions 
based  not  upon  what  usage  really  is,  but  upon 
what  in  their  opinion  it  ought  to  be.  They 
evolved  or  adopted  artificial  rules  for  the  govern- 
ment of  expression.  By  these  they  tested  the 
correctness  of  whatever  was  written.  They 
were  thereby  enabled  to  proclaim  their  own 
superiority  to  the  great  authors  of  our  speech 
by  pointing  out  the  numerous  violations  of 
this  assumed  propriety  into  which  these  had 
been  unhappily  betrayed.  As  the  rules  they 
proclaimed  were  copied  and  repeated  by  others, 

83 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

a  fictitious  standard  of  usage  was  set  up  in 
numerous  instances  and  is  largely  responsible 
for  many  of  the  current  misconceptions  which 
now  prevail  as  to  what  is  grammatical. 

It  is  the  belief  in  this  fictitious  standard  which 
is  responsible  not  merely  for  numerous  mis- 
statements about  the  correctness  of  particular 
phrases  and  constructions,  but  for  the  frequent 
failure  to  comprehend  the  nature  of  prevail- 
ing linguistic  conditions.  One  of  the  latter  re- 
quires special  mention  here.  It  is  no  infre- 
quent remark  that  in  these  later  days  there  ex- 
ists a  distinct  tendency  towards  lawlessness  in 
usage,  a  distinct  indisposition  to  defer  to  au- 
thority. We  are  told  that  the  language  of  the 
man  in  the  street  is  held  up  as  the  all-sufiicient 
standard.  If  this  statement  were  ever  true,  it 
was  never  less  true  than  now.  There  might 
have  been  apparent  justification  for  an  assertion 
of  this  sort  in  the  great  creative  Elizabethan 
period.  Then  no  restraints  upon  expression 
seem  to  have  been  recognized  outside  of  the 
taste  or  knowledge  of  the  writer.  As  a  con- 
sequence, the  loosest  language  of  conversation 
was  reproduced  with  fidelity  in  the  speech  of 
the  drama,  then  the  principal  national  literature. 
But  nothing  of  this  freedom  is  found  now.  A 
constant  supervision  over  speech  is  exercised  by 
84 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

amateur  champions  of  propriety.  These  are 
ensconced  at  every  fireside.  In  colleges  and 
academies  and  high  schools  they  constitute  an 
army  of  assumed  experts,  who  are  regularly  en- 
gaged in  holding  in  check  any  attempt  to  in- 
dulge in  real  or  supposed  lawlessness. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  from  the  quarter  of 
license  that  any  danger  to  our  speech  arises. 
If  peril  exist  at  all,  it  comes  from  the  ignorant 
formalism  and  affected  precision  which  wage 
perpetual  war  with  the  ancient  idioms  of  our 
tongue,  or  array  themselves  in  hostility  to  its 
natural  development.  That  this,  so  far  as  it  is 
effective,  is  a  positive  injury  to  the  language  was 
pointed  out  several  years  ago  by  a  scholar  who,  in 
consequence  of  the  study  he  had  given  to  the 
usage  of  the  great  writers,  was  enabled  to  speak 
on  this  subject  with  an  authority  to  which  few 
have  attained.  He  was  discussing  the  remarks 
of  certain  critics  who  had  professed  to  con- 
sider as  inaccurate  and  ungrammatical  the 
preterite  wended  in  the  locution,  **  he  wended 
his  way."  "It  is  by  such  lessons  as  these,"  he 
continued,  "that  the  unreflecting  and  uninquir- 
ing  are  misled  into  eschewing,  as  if  they  were 
wrong,  words  and  phrases  which  are  perfectly 
right."  If  there  is  any  revolt  against  the  au- 
thority of  such  guides,  equally  blind  and  pre- 
85 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

sumptuous,  if  there  is  any  lack  of  deference  to 
the  rules  they  seek  to  impose,  it  is  a  condition 
of  things  to  be  welcomed  and  not  to  be  deplored. 
Obviously  it  is  idle  to  discuss  questions  of 
usage  unless  some  general  principles  can  be 
established  in  accordance  with  which  the  cor- 
rectness or  incorrectness  of  particular  expres- 
sions can  be  tested.  If  these  do  not  exist, 
or  if  they  cannot  be  ascertained,  opinion  as  to 
the  propriety  of  particular  words  or  grammatical 
constructions  will  necessarily  vary  with  the 
tastes  or  prejudices  of  the  writer  or  speaker. 
If  this  be  not  supported  by  adequate  knowledge, 
it  will  ordinarily  be  little  more  than  the  ex- 
pression of  personal  feeling.  A  particular  in- 
dividual dislikes  a  particular  word  or  phrase. 
That  is  one  of  the  best  of  reasons  why  he  should 
not  employ  it  himself;  it  is  not  a  very  cogent 
reason  for  inducing  others  to  follow  his  example. 
There  are,  of  course,  many  offences  against  good 
usage  that  cultivated  men  everywhere  will  con- 
demn without  hesitation.  These,  however,  are 
not  the  ones  that  cause  embarrassment.  Every 
writer  is  constantly  confronted  with  the  de- 
nunciation of  words  and  locutions  which  he  not 
only  hears  in  the  speech  of  those  he  meets  daily, 
but  finds  employed  in  the  works  of  men  regarded 
by  all  as  authorities.  If  he  himself  has  made  no 
86 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

study  of  the  usage  thus  condemned,  if  he  rec- 
ognizes that  he  is  not  in  a  position  to  decide  the 
matter  for  himself — and  few  men  have  either 
the  leisure  or  the  opportunity  to  gain  the  special 
knowledge  requisite  for  that  purpose — it  is  in- 
evitable that  he  should  be  left  in  a  state  of  per- 
plexity and  consequent  indecision. 

Assertions  as  to  what  is  proper  or  improper 
in  speech  are  now,  indeed,  encountered  every- 
where. They  naturally  form  a  constituent  part 
of  grammars.  They  furnish  the  sole  contents  of 
some  manuals.  They  turn  up  in  most  unex- 
pected places  in  books  and  periodicals  of  every 
sort.  It  is  a  subject  upon  which  every  one  feels 
himself  competent  to  lay  down  the  law.  It 
has  now  become  practically  impossible  for  any 
writer  so  to  express  himself  that  he  shall  not 
run  foul  of  the  convictions  of  some  person  who 
has  fixed  upon  the  employment  of  a  particular 
word  or  construction  as  his  test  of  correctness  of 
usage.  Should  any  person  seriously  set  out  to 
observe  every  one  of  the  various  and  varying 
utterances  put  forth  for  his  guidance  by  all  the 
members  of  this  volunteer  army  of  guardians  of 
the  speech,  he  would  in  process  of  time  find 
himself  without  any  language  to  use  whatever. 
Just  as,  in  the  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  Dick 
Swiveller's  approaches  to  the  Strand  were  cut 
»  87 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

off  in  succession  by  the  creation  of  new  creditors 
in  different  streets,  so  the  writer's  avenues  to 
expression  would  be  closed  one  by  one,  and  he 
would  finally  be  compelled  to  resort  to  the  most 
tortuous  and  roundabout  devices  to  convey  the 
simplest  meaning. 

Can,  therefore,  any  general  prmciples  be 
found  which  will  put  us  in  a  position  to  reach 
in  any  given  case  conclusions  independent  of 
our  personal  prejudices  or  prepossessions  ?  One 
there  certainly  is  which,  until  lately  at  least,  has 
been  always  accepted  without  question.  In  the 
form  in  which  it  is  familiar  to  us  it  was  stated 
about  two  thousand  years  ago  by  Horace  in  his 
treatise  on  the  Poetic  Art.  There  he  tells  us 
that  words  which  are  now  disused  shall  be  re- 
vived; and  words  which  are  now  held  in  honor 
shall  disappear.  Then  he  adds  the  remark 
which  has  become  almost  a  commonplace: 

"  Si  volet  usus, 
Quem  penes  arbitrium   est   et  jus  et  norma  lo- 
quendi." 

Usage,  therefore,  according  to  the  dictum  of 
Horace,  is  the  deciding  authority,  the  binding 
law,  the  rightful  rule  of  speech. 

But  a  further  question  at  once  arises.     Usage, 
it  may  be  conceded,  is  the  standard  of  speech. 
88 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

But  whose  usage?  Certainly  not  the  usage 
of  this  man  or  that  man  indifferently.  Horace, 
in  laying  down  his  dictum,  could  not  have  been 
thinking  of  the  general  body  of  his  fellow-coun- 
trymen. These  spoke  the  Latin  of  the  camps 
and  the  market-place.  Much  of  what  they  said 
would  have  sounded  to  his  ears  as  barbarous; 
some  of  it  would  in  all  probability  have  been  ab- 
solutely unintelligible.  But  if  he  did  not  mean 
these,  of  whom  was  he  speaking?  The  answer 
is  so  evident  that  hardly  anything  can  be  more 
surprising  than  the  doubt  which  has  been  en- 
tertained and  expressed  of  its  exact  nature- 
Clearly,  what  Horace  had  in  mind  was  the  usage 
of  the  best  speakers  and  writers.  It  was  that, 
and  that  only,  which  in  his  eyes  constituted  the 
standard  of  propriety.  The  acceptance  by  such 
men  of  a  new  word  or  locution,  no  matter  from 
what  source  coming,  gave  it  established  currency; 
their  employment  of  a  grammatical  form  gave 
it  the  stamp  of  authority.  The  usus  of  Horace 
was,  in  consequence,  precisely  the  same  as  that 
which  Quintilian  called  later  the  consensus 
ertiditorum — the  agreement  of  the  cultivated. 
Good  usage,  in  short,  is  the  usage  of  the  in- 
tellectually good.  The  same  thought  is  brought 
out  strongly  by  Ben  Jonson  in  his  observations 
upon  style,  though  his  words  are  little  more 

89 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

than  a  literal  translation  from  the  Latin  author 
last  named.  "Custom,"  ~said  he,  "is  the  most 
certain  mistress  of  language,  as  the  pubHc 
stamp  makes  the  current  money."  But,  like 
Quintilian,  he  was  careful  to  define  what  he 
meant  by  this  supreme  authority.  "When  I 
name  custom,"  he  added,  "I  understand  not  the 
vulgar  custom;  for  that  were  a  precept  no  less 
dangerous  to  language  than  life,  if  we  should 
speak  or  live  after  the  manners  of  the  vulgar; 
but  that  I  call  custom  of  speech,  which  is  the 
consent  of  the  learned;  as  custom  of  life,  which 
is  the  consent  of  the  good."^ 

The  dictum  of  Horace,  indeed,  has  hardly  been 
called  in  question  for  most  of  the  two  thousand 
years  which  have  elapsed  since  its  utterance. 
But  of  late  attempts  have  occasionally  been 
made  to  dispute  its  correctness.  Many  of  these 
have  come  from  those  who  evidently  did  not 
comprehend  what  the  poet  meant  by  usus.  They 
have,  consequently,  imputed  to  Horace  some- 
thing which  Horace  never  had  in  mind.  They 
have  attributed  to  him  the  promulgation  of  the 
error  just  indicated — that  is,  that  anything  is 
good  usage  which  is  sanctioned  by  the  usage  of 
the  large  majority  of  speakers  and  writers,  in- 

^  Ben  Jonson,  Discoveries,  De  orationis  dignitate. 
90 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

dependent  of  the  character  of  the  individuals 
who  make  up  that  majority.  But  denials  there 
have  been  of  his  assertion  by  certain  persons 
to  whom  it  is  hardly  possible  to  attribute  this 
lack  of  perception.  These  have  been  put  forth 
in  books  which  in  some  cases  still  continue  to 
have  a  fairly  respectable  sale.  The  remarks 
made  by  the  writers  of  these  works  show,  how- 
ever, that  it  is  much  easier,  as  it  is  altogether 
more  common,  to  content  one's  self  with  a  gen- 
eral denial  of  the  truth  of  the  poet's  declara- 
tion than  to  find  any  substitute  to  take  its  place. 
Authority  there  surely  must  be  somewhere.  Did 
it  not  exist,  there  would  be  a  reign  of  license  in 
which  each  man,  no  matter  how  incompetent, 
would  be  a  law  unto  himself.  If  usage,  there- 
fore, is  not  the  standard  of  speech,  it  is  reason- 
able to  ask,  What  is  ?  If  the  best  speakers  and 
writers  are  not  guides,  to  what  quarter  can  we 
repair  in  cases  of  doubt  or  difficulty  ? 

Several  answers  or  rather  attempted  answers 
have  been  made  to  this  question.  Let  us  take 
up  the  consideration  of  the  two  most  loudly 
trumpeted  substitutes  which  are  to  furnish  us  a 
higher  law  for  propriety  of  speech  than  can  be 
found  in  good  usage.  The  first  of  these,  we  are 
told,  consists  in  the  principles  of  universal  gram- 
mar. In  them  is  lodged  the  supreme  authority. 
91 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

What  are  these  principles  of  universal  grammar, 
it  is  natural  to  ask.  They  can  hardly  be  any- 
thing else  than  rules  based  upon  practices  which 
all  languages  agree  in  observing.  But  if  there 
be  such,  we  come  back  for  their  establishment 
to  the  usage  of  those  who  speak  these  various 
tongues.  Consequently,  whenever  in  them  usage 
differs,  as  in  many  instances  it  does,  we  must 
either  deny  in  a  given  case  the  general  applica- 
bility of  the  particular  principle,  or  insist  upon 
deciding  the  grammatical  propriety  of  the  prac- 
tice of  one  tongue  or  of  one  set  of  tongues  by 
the  practice  of  an  alien  or  of  alien  tongues.  To 
put  this  matter  in  as  clear  a  light  as  possible, 
let  us  consider  an  illustration  furnished  by  one 
of  the  most  ardent  upholders  of  universal  gram- 
mar as  the  final  arbiter.  "No  amount  of  wis- 
dom," says  he,  "can  excuse  the  use  of  a  really 
singular  noun  with  a  plural  verb,  or  the  reverse." 
This  has  certainly  a  reasonable  look.  If  any 
example  can  be  adduced  which  will  justify 
the  establishment  of  this  theoretical  standard 
of  propriety,  none  is  likely  to  be  found  more 
satisfactory  than  the  one  just  given.  But 
at  once  there  arises  the  thought  that  in  the 
Greek  language — by  many  deemed  the  most 
perfect  instrument  of  expression  that  mankind 
has  ever  known — the  plural  nominative  of  the 
92 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

neuter  noun  had  pretty  generally  its  verb  in  the 
singular.  How  does  the  advocate  of  the  law 
higher  than  usage  meet  this  violation  of  his  prin- 
ciples of  universal  grammar  ?  He  does  not  meet 
it;  he  calmly  evades  it.  He  assures  us  that  the 
Greek  neuter  plural  may  be  looked  upon  as  a 
collective.  But  if  this  be  so,  it  must  be  because 
usage  has  come  to  deem  it  as  such ;  for  it  cannot 
be  so  in  the  nature  of  things.  Furthermore,  if 
the  privilege  of  thus  regarding  it  be  conceded 
to  the  Greek,  it  must  also  be  conceded  to  the 
English  or  to  any  other  tongue,  if  its  users  pre- 
fer to  look  upon  it  in  such  a  light.  The  im- 
puted authority  of  universal  grammar  conse- 
quently breaks  down  in  its  chosen  illustration. 
Nor  are  we  here  at  the  end  of  our  difficulties  in 
the  very  example  under  discussion.  In  modem 
Greek  the  construction  in  question  no  longer 
exists.  Even  in  ancient  Greek  it  occurs  much 
less  frequently  in  the  Epic  dialect  than  in  the 
Attic.  What,  then,  are  we  to  think  of  these 
vaunted  principles  of  universal  grammar  which 
allow  a  construction  to  be  proper  at  one  period 
or  in  one  speech,  and  at  another  period  or  in 
another  speech  declare  it  to  be  improper  ?  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  will  be  found  that  in  every 
instance  selected  to  illustrate  the  impossibility 
of  usage  overriding  grammar,  it  is  usage  that  has 
93 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

to  be  evoked  in  order  to  justify  the  apparent 
violation  of  grammar  which  has  taken  place. 

Still  another  standard  has  been  set  up  which 
has  the  distinction  of  being  much  more  con- 
fidently proclaimed  than  clearly  defined.  Here 
are  the  words  of  one  of  its  promulgators.  "The 
truth  is,"  says  Richard  Grant  White,  "that  the 
authority  of  general  usage,  or  even  of  the  usage 
of  great  writers,  is  not  absolute  in  language. 
There  is  a  misuse  of  words  which  can  be  justified 
by  no  authority,  however  great,  by  no  usage, 
however  general."^  There  is  nothing  at  all 
new  about  this  assertion.  It  is  the  one  which 
has  been  regularly  made  for  the  last  hundred 
and  fifty  years  by  every  person  who  finds  that 
locutions  to  which  he  takes  exception  occur  in 
the  writings  of  those  whose  literary  superiority 
is  everywhere  recognized.  Like  his  predecessors 
the  utterer  of  this  dictum  did  not  make  any 
definite  announcement  of  the  standard  which 
was  to  take  its  place.  As  near,  however,  as  can 
be  gathered  from  various  passages  in  his  writ- 
ings, the  guide  he  had  in  mind  was  reason.  Under 
its  benign  direction,  we  are  told  that  "rude, 
clumsy,  and  insufficiently  worked-out  forms  of 
speech,  sometimes    mistakenly    honored    under 

*  Words  and  Their  Uses,  p.  24. 
94 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

the  name   of  idioms,"  tend  more  and  more  to 
disappear.^ 

Unfortunately  for  the  guide  here  designated, 
reason  in  the  intellectual  world  is  very  much 
like  conscience  in  the  moral;  the  same  fact  wiU 
lead  two  men  to  draw  exactly  opposite  con- 
clusions. The  dictates  of  each  ought,  of  course, 
to  be  obeyed  by  the  individual;  it  is  quite  an- 
other thing  to  seek  to  impose  them  upon  the 
conduct  of  others.  In  morals  an  unenlightened 
conscience  often  induces  its  owner  to  condemn 
the  acts  of  those  far  better  than  himself.  Worse 
than  that,  it  sometimes  leads  him  to  commit 
acts  in  themselves  essentially  wicked.  It  is 
exactly  the  same  in  the  matter  of  language.  An 
unenlightened  reason  constantly  leads  men  to 
condemn  words  and  constructions  used  by  those 
far  superior  to  them  in  knowledge  and  taste 
and  ability.  But  even  where  ignorance  does 
not  prevail,  any  so-called  standard,  such  as 
reason,  fails  us  when  it  is  most  needed.  Two 
persons,  each  of  a  high  degree  of  intelligence,  are 
often  found  disagreeing  as  to  the  propriety  of 
employing  particular  words  or  constructions. 
Their  knowledge  may  be  the  same;  it  is  their 
judgments  which  vary.     In  the  conflict  between 

*  White,  Words  and  Their  Uses,  p.  23. 

95 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

the  reasoning  powers  of  two  equally  cultivated 
men  who  is  to  decide  ?  The  only  way  that  can 
properly  be  taken — it  may  be  added,  it  is  the 
only  way  that  ever  is  taken — to  settle  the  dis- 
pute is  by  an  appeal  to  authority.  That,  of 
course,  is  nothing  more  than  the  reason  of  the 
best  speakers  and  writers  exhibited  in  their 
practice.  Here  once  again  we  come  back  to 
usage,  as  the  standard  of  speech.  It  invariably 
turns  up  as  the  final  court  of  appeal.  What- 
ever road  we  set  out  to  take,  we  find  ourselves 
travelling  in  this  one  at  last. 

The  truth  is,  were  everything  known  about 
good  usage  with  the  positiveness  with  which 
assertions  about  it  are  made,  the  constant  con- 
troversies which  arise  in  regard  to  it  would  be  a 
simple  impossibility.  In  discussions  of  it,  what 
is  called  reason  is  often  only  another  name 
for  ignorance.  The  "insufficiently  worked-out 
forms  of  speech,  sometimes  mistakenly  honored 
under  the  name  of  idioms,"  prove  to  be  insuffi- 
ciently understood  forms  of  speech  which  the 
verbal  critic  condemns  because  he  knows  noth- 
ing of  their  nature  and  history.  In  consequence 
there  has  never  really  been  the  slightest  ground 
for  disputing  the  dictum  of  Horace  when  rightly 
understood.  It  embodies  nothing  more  than 
the  result  of  universal  experience.     There  are 

96   . 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

modifications,  or,  rather,  explanations,  to  which 
it  is  subject;  but  its  general  truth  cannot  be 
successfully  questioned.  The  standard  of  speech 
is  therefore  the  usage  of  the  cultivated.  Such 
men  are  the  absolute  dictators  of  language. 
They  are  the  lawgivers  whose  edicts  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  grammarian  to  record.  What  they 
agree  upon  is  correct;  what  they  shun  it  is  ex- 
pedient to  shun,  even  if  not  wrong  in  itself  to 
employ.  Words  coined  by  those  outside  of  the 
class  to  which  these  men  belong  do  not  pass  into 
the  language  as  a  constituent  part  of  it  until 
sanctioned  by  their  approbation  and  use.  Their 
authority,  both  as  regards  the  reception  or  re- 
jection of  locutions  of  any  sort,  is  final.  It 
hardly  needs  to  be  said  that  "the  man  in  the 
street "  is  not  only  no  dictator  of  usage,  but 
that  he  has  no  direct  influence  upon  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  liie  of  any  word  or  phrase.  This 
depends  entirely  upon  its  adoption  by  great 
writers.  If  these  fail  to  accept  a  new  locu- 
tion, it  is  certain  to  die  eventually  and  as  a 
general  rule  very  speedily.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  purist  is  as  little  a  final  authority.  He 
may  protest  against  the  employment  by  famous 
authors  of  certain  words  or  constructions.  He 
may  declare  these  opposed  to  reason,  contrary 
to  the  analogies  of  the  language,  or  tending  to 
97 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

destroy  distinctions  which  should  be  maintained. 
If  they  heed  his  remonstrances,  well  and  good. 
If  they  disregard  them,  he  mistakes  his  position 
when  he  pretends  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  the 
decisions  of  his  masters. 

The  establishment  of  this  dictum,  with  the 
limitation  of  its  meaning,  leads  directly  to  an- 
other conclusion.  Good  usage  is  not  something 
to  be  evolved  from  one's  own  consciousness,  or 
to  be  deduced  by  some  process  of  reasoning;  it 
is  something  to  be  ascertained.  It  must  be 
learned  just  as  language  itself  is  learned.  Fur- 
thermore, there  is  no  short-cut  to  its  acquisition. 
Grammars  may  in  some  instances  help  us;  in 
some  instances  they  do  help  us,  but  in  others 
they  sometimes  do  just  the  reverse.  But  in  no 
case  can  they  ever  be  appealed  to  as  final  au- 
thorities. There  is  one  way  and  but  oneway 
of  attaining  to  the  end  desired  as  a  theoretical 
accomplishment,  and  fortunately  it  is  a  course 
open  to  every  one.  Knowledge  of  good  usage 
can  be  acquired  only  by  associating  in  life  with 
the  best  speakers  or  in  literature  with  the  best 
writers.  The  latter  resource  is  always  avail- 
able. It  is  the  practice  and  consent  of  the  great 
authors  that  determine  correctness  of  speech. 
The  pages  of  these  are  accessible  to  all.  If  they 
differ  among  themselves  about  details,  choice  is 
98 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

allowable  until  a  general  agreement  settles  in 
course  of  time  upon  one  mode  of  expression  as 
preferable  to  another  or  to  any  others  pro- 
posed. 

So  much  for  the  general  principle.  But 
there  is  a  still  further  limitation  of  the  sense  of 
Horace's  dictum.  When  we  say  that  usage 
is  the  standard  of  speech,  we  mean  not  merely 
good  usage,  but  present  good  usage.  Neither 
the  grammar  nor  the  vocabulary  of  one  age  is 
precisely  the  grammar  or  vocabulary  of  another. 
The  language  of  a  later  period  may  not  vary 
much  from  the  language  of  an  earlier  one,  but 
it  will  vary  somewhat.  It  is  not  necessarily 
better  or  worse;  it  is  simply  different.  The  fact 
that  the  good  usage  of  one  generation  may  be 
distinctly  improper  usage  in  a  generation  which 
follows  is  frequently  exemplified  in  the  mean- 
ings given  to  individual  words,  and  sometimes  in 
the  words  themselves.  This  we  all  accept  as  a 
matter  of  course.  But  the  same  statement 
can  be  made  just  as  truly  of  grammatical  forms 
and  constructions.  In  the  case  of  these  the 
variations  between  different  periods  do  not  im- 
press themselves  so  much  upon  our  attention  be- 
cause they  are  comparatively  few.  Still  they 
occur.  Ignorance  of  this  fact  or  indifference  to 
it  has  often  led  to  the  dentmciation  of  the 
99 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

writers  of  the  past  as  being  guilty  of  solecisms  or 
barbarisms,  when  they  have  done  nothing  more 
than  conform  to  the  usage  of  their  own  time. 
If  such  criticism  be  accepted  as  just,  we  in  turn 
shall  be  left  at  the  mercy  of  our  descendants. 
We  shall  be  reproached  for  employing  words  in 
senses  they  do  not  approve,  or  for  resorting 
to  forms  and  constructions  which  they  have 
ceased  to  look  upon  as  correct.  If  we  recognize 
that  whatever  is  in  usage  is  right,  we  must  be 
prepared  to  go  a  step  further  and  concede  that 
whatever  was  was  right. 


Ill 

THE    LINGUISTIC   AUTHORITY   OF    GREAT    WRITERS 

THREE  fundamental  principles  were  laid 
down  in  the  preceding  essay.  The  first 
is  that  usage  is  the  authoritative  standard  of 
speech.  The  second  is  that  it  must  be  good 
usage.  The  third  is  that  it  must  be  present 
good  usage.  When  the  two  last  concur — as  in 
the  large  majority  of  instances  they  do — ^there 
is  no  further  appeal  possible  in  any  given  case. 
The  question  has  been  definitely  settled.  To 
this  proposition  we  all  unhesitatingly  assent, 
when  it  comes  to  the  consideration  of  disputed* 
points  in  foreign  tongues,  especially  the  classical. 
In  them  the  grammarian  has  been  taught  to 
know  his  place.  Take,  for  example,  Latin.  If 
a  word  or  construction  occurs  in  Cicero,  the 
question  of  its  propriety  is  settled  at  once.  No 
one  thinks  of  disputing  the  authority  of  so  great 
a  master  of  the  speech. 

The  same  principle  applies  to   English.     It 
follows,  therefore,  that  when  we  find  an  expres- 

lOI 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

sion  of  any  sort  employed  by  a  writer  of  the  first  Ij 
rank,  the  assumption  must  always  be  that  this  || 
particular  expression  is  proper.  The  burden  of  | 
proof  invariably  falls  upon  him  who  maintains  ] 
the  contrary.  Other  things  being  equal,  the 
chances  are  immensely  in  favor  of  the  great 
author  being  right  in  his  practice  and  of  his 
critic  being  wrong  in  his  censure.  For  while  the 
great  author  is  liable  to  commit  error,  he  is  far  less 
liable  to  commit  it  than  he  who  undertakes  the 
office  of  corrector.  It  is  idle  to  suppose  that  a  man 
who  has  attained  the  highest  eminence  in  litera- 
ture will  not,  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances, 
have  been  particular  as  to  the  proper  treatment 
of  the  material  with  which  he  has  been  dealing. 
If  the  critic  be  solicitous  in  the  matter  of  language, 
it  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  he  whose  success 
depends  upon  his  use  of  it  has  paid  more  than 
ordinary  attention  to  the  minor  morals  of  his 
profession.  If  he  employs  locutions  which  his 
censor  condemns,  it  is  a  natural  inference  in  con- 
sequence that  he  has  employed  them  designedly. 
This  involves  the  further  inference  that  his 
knowledge  of  good  usage  is  better  than  that  of 
his  critic. 

Against  this  view  it  may  be  said  that  there 
are  many  authors,  and  even  authors  of  highest 
repute,  who  have  little  solicitude  about  expres- 

I02 


AUTHORITY    OF    GREAT    WRITERS 

sion  in  itself.  They  clothe  their  thoughts  in  the 
words  that  come  first  to  the  pen.  It  is  enough 
for  them  if  the  reader  understands  or  feels  what 
they  have  sought  to  say.  Why  should  they  not 
as  a  consequence  be  guilty  of  frequent  errors? 
Furthermore,  a  large  number  of  great  writers, 
and  perhaps  the  majority  of  them,  have  risen 
from  a  station  in  life  comparatively  if  not 
actually  humble.  Necessarily  such  have  had 
few  early  advantages.  During  their  most  im- 
pressionable years  they  have  not  been  accus- 
tomed to  hear  the  language  spoken  with  purity. 
Why,  then,  should  they  not  continue  to  be  af- 
fected by  the  associations  which  surrounded 
their  childhood?  Why  should  they  not  un- 
consciously commit  errors  which,  owing  to  the 
influences  they  were  under,  do  not  strike  them 
as  errors? 

There  need  be  no  denial  that  there  is  a  certain 
degree  of  justice  in  the  implication  which  these 
questions  are  intended  to  convey.  Still  there 
is  far  less  of  it  than  would  be  supposed  at  first 
thought.  The  answer  to  them,  indeed,  brings 
out  sharply  a  point  in  discussions  of  this  sort 
which  is  almost  invariably  ignored.  There  is 
another  and  a  higher  way  than  scrupulous  care 
in  which  the  great  author  is  kept  from  wrong- 
doing. He  has  been  born,  so  to  speak,  in  the 
8  103 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

purple.  As  compared  with  other  men  he  starts 
out  with  an  immense  handicap  in  his  favor.  He 
is  saved  from  an  infinity  of  errors  by  that  fine 
sense  of  expression  which  belongs  to  him  by  the 
right  of  genius.  Furthermore,  no  matter  what 
may  have  been  his  social  station,  he  has  from 
his  earliest  years  ordinarily  lived  and  moved  in 
the  society  of  the  best  and  greatest  of  his  pro- 
fession. By  his  lifelong  familiarity  with  their 
writings  he  has  developed  the  delicate  taste,  the 
keen  sensitiveness  to  what  is  right  or  wrong  in 
usage  that  holds  the  place  in  literature  which 
conscience  does  in  morals.  It  has  furnished  him, 
without  his  directly  seeking  it,  with  a  standard 
of  literary  behavior.  He  can  therefore  afford 
to  disregard  and  usually  to  despise  the  rhetorical 
guide-books  which  more  or  less  ignorantly  set 
out  to  show  him  what  to  follow  and  what  to 
avoid. 

This  is  the  salvation  of  those  great  authors 
who  do  not  consciously  make  a  study  of  style 
beyond  the  simple  desire  to  say  clearly  and  ef- 
fectively what  they  mean.  They  follow  the 
right  path  because  it  is  the  only  path  they  know. 
They  do  not  seek  for  rules  because  they  do  not 
need  them.  It  is  with  them  as  with  a  highly 
cultivated  man  who  has  been  brought  up  from 
his  earliest  years  in  the  most  refined  and  polished 
104 


AUTHORITY    OF    GREAT    WRITERS 

society.  Such  a  one  does  not  acquire  his  good 
breeding  by  studying  books  of  etiquette.  His 
manners  come  from  the  unconscious  adoption 
by  himself  of  the  manners  of  the  class  to  which 
he  belongs  and  with  which  he  has  mainly  as- 
sociated. He  acts  properly  because  he  has 
never  known  what  it  is  to  act  otherwise.  His 
own  behavior  is  in  truth  the  standard  upon  which 
the  rules  contained  in  books  of  etiquette  are 
founded,  if  they  possess  any  value  or  authority 
at  all. 

It  is  accordingly  the  consciousness  of  their 
position  which  explains  the  attitude  generally 
taken  towards  most  verbal  criticism  by  authors 
of  the  highest  grade.  They  may  not  be  able  to 
analyze  the  expressions  they  use  or  defend  them 
by  convincing  arguments.  It  is  sufficient  for 
their  purposes  that  they  are  following  the 
practice  of  the  great  writers  before  them  and 
contemporary  with  them.  Naturally  the  opin- 
ion of  grammarians  and  purists  does  not  affect 
them  profoundly.  They  are  satisfied  that  a 
reason  for  their  course  exists,  though  they  may 
not  have  charged  themselves  with  the  labor  of 
ascertaining  it.  Scott,  for  illustration,  is  con- 
stantly spoken  of  as  a  very  careless  writer.  His 
productions  have  been  a  favorite  hunting-ground 
for  verbal  critics.     Why  has  he  been  selected  for 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

special  censure  ?  Simply  because  he  disregarded 
a  number  of  rules  which  men  infinitely  inferior 
to  himself  have  set  up  as  tests  for  correctness  of 
speech.  Many  of  these,  he  could  hardly  have 
helped  seeing,  were  nothing  but  the  outcome 
of  the  limited  knowledge  possessed  by  his  cen- 
surers.  Scott,  to  be  sure,  was  a  very  rapid 
writer,  and  his  style  at  times  exhibits  the  in- 
accuracy and  slovenliness  which  arise  from 
haste.  Errors  of  this  kind  he  would  have 
conceded  to  be  errors,  and  in  fact  conceded  and 
corrected  them  when  they  were  pointed  out. 
But  in  the  great  majority  of  instances  the  faults 
with  which  he  has  been  charged  would  not  have 
been  deemed  by  him  faults  at  all.  Had  his  at- 
tention been  called  to  them,  he  would  not  have 
made  the  slightest  alteration. 

On  this  very  point  he  has  not  left  us  in  doubt. 
Not  even  his  regard  for  his  son-in-law  was  suf- 
ficient to  induce  hira  to  disguise  his  contempt 
for  his  son-in-law's  verbal  criticism.  There 
is  a  significant  entry  in  his  diary  which  bears 
upon  this  subject,  under  the  date  of  April  22, 
1826.  "J.  G.  L.  points  out,"  he  writes,  "some 
solecisms  in  my  style,  as  amid  for  amidst ,  scarce 
for  scarcely.  Whose,  he  says,  is  the  proper  geni- 
tive of  which  only  at  such  times  as  which  retains 
its  quality  of  impersonification.  Well!  I  will 
106 


AUTHORITY    OF   GREAT   WRITERS 

try  to  remember  all  this,  but  after  all  I  write 
grammar  as  I  speak,  to  make  my  meaning 
known,  and  a  solecism  in  point  of  composition, 
like  a  Scotch  word  in  speaking,  is  indifferent  to 
me.  ...  I  believe  the  Bailiff  in  the  Good-natured 
Man  is  not  far  wrong  when  he  says,  '  One  man 
has  one  way  of  expressing  himself,  and  another 
another,  and  that  is  all  the  difference  between 
them.'" 

The  passage  just  quoted  is  interesting  for  two 
reasons.  It  exhibits  in  the  first  place  the  dif- 
ferent attitude  towards  expression  assumed  by 
the  man  who  approaches  speech  from  the  side 
of  literature  and  the  man  who  approaches  it 
from  the  side  of  what  he  deems  grammar.  The 
one  feels  himself  the  master  of  language;  the 
other  regards  himself  as  its  slave.  But  the 
passage  conveys  a  much  more  useful  lesson  as 
to  the  distinction  prevailing  between  the  two. 
That  is,  the  superiority  of  the  most  careless  man 
of  genius  to  the  most  careful  man  of  talent 
in  the  very  matter  in  which  the  latter  arrogates 
to  himself  special  proficiency.  Few  linguistic 
critics  will  venture  to  claim  for  themselves  the 
knowledge  and  skill  possessed  by  Lockhart. 
He  was  himself  a  writer  of  no  mean  ability.  He 
was  at  the  head  of  one  of  the  two  great  reviews 
of  the  day  which  exerted  the  widest  influence. 
107 


I 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

He  considered  himself  a  good  deal  of  an  authority 
upon  propriety  of  speech.  He  assuredly  had  a 
better  right  to  think  so  than  most  of  those  who 
aspire  to  that  somewhat  dubious  dignity.  Yet 
in  his  hands  verbal  criticism  was  as  valueless  as 
in  those  of  nearly  all  who  devote  themselves  to 
that  occupation. 

The  point  to  be  made  emphatic  here  is  that 
Scott  in  his  usage  was  entirely  right  and  Lock- 
hart  in  his  censure  of  it  was  entirely  wrong. 
His  so-called  corrections  display  nothing  more 
than  his  own  narrow  limitations  of  knowledge 
and  taste.  Scott's  hardly  disguised  contempt 
for  them  discloses  the  real  feelings  of  the  great 
writer  towards  the  pedantic  but  ignorant 
purism  which  according  to  its  own  account  is 
animated  by  a  lofty  solicitude  to  preserve  the 
language  from  corruption.  With  his  intimate 
acquaintance  with  literature  he  could  hardly 
have  helped  observing  that  the  adverbial  form 
scarce  had  been  far  more  common  in  the  best 
usage  of  the  past  than  scarcely,  and  was  cer-: 
tainly  as  much  so  in  the  best  usage  of  his  own 
time.  Nor  could  he  have  doubted  that  both 
amid  and  amidst  were  open  to  him  to  choose  from 
at  pleasure,  guided  only  by  that  fine  sense  of 
propriety  which  genius  imparts,  enabling  its 
possessor  to  decide  in  any  given  instance  which 
io8 


AUTHORITY    OF   GREAT   WRITERS 

word  would  be  the  more  appropriate.  He  may 
not  have  been  aware  that  whose  was  etymologi- 
cally  the  genitive  of  the  neuter  interrogative  pro- 
noun as  well  as  of  the  masculine.  He  was 
probably  ignorant  of  the  history  of  the  form, 
and  of  the  change  of  character  and  employ- 
ment it  had  undergone.  But  he  was  in  posses- 
sion of  the  far  more  important  knowledge  that 
it  had  been  employed  as  a  relative  to  antecedents 
denoting  things  without  life  by  every  author  in 
our  literature  who  is  entitled  to  be  called  an 
authority. 

The  general  statement  cannot  be  successfully 
contravened  that  no  rules  of  verbal  criticism 
are  worthy  of  consideration  unless  they  are  sup- 
ported by  the  concurrent  usage  of  the  best 
writers.  But  at  this  very  point  arises  the  neces- 
sity of  a  still  further  caution.  It  is  the  practice 
of  the  great  author  that  is  to  be  heeded;  fre- 
quently, but  by  no  means  invariably,  his  precepts. 
For  reaching  a  correct  decision  upon  doubtful 
questions  of  usage  he  may  be  no  better  qualified 
than  hundreds  of  men  inferior  to  him  in  the  art 
in  which  he  excels.  Especially  will  this  be  the 
case  when  the  point  in  dispute  does  not  depend 
upon  taste,  in  which  he  is  likely  to  surpass  any 
one  of  those  holding  adverse  opinions,  but 
upon  the  results  of  linguistic  study.  There  are 
109 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

matters  in  regard  to  which  no  height  of  genius 
can  supply  the  place  of  a  little  accurate  knowl- 
edge. When  a  great  writer  steps  forth  to  en- 
lighten us  upon  a  question  of  language,  for  the 
proper  consideration  of  which  an  historical  in- 
vestigation is  essential,  he  has  gone  out  of  the 
province  where  he  is  a  recognized  authority  and 
placed  himself  in  a  situation  in  which  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten  his  words  will  not  carry  and 
ought  not  to  carry  so  much  weight  as  do  those 
of  the  dullest  specialist  who  has  made  a  study 
of  the  origin  and  history  of  the  form  or  con- 
struction under  discussion.  In  entering  into 
any  such  novel  sphere  he  is  subject  to  all  the 
infirmities  of  his  fellow-men.  Like  them  he  has 
his  pet  aversions.  As  a  general  rule,  indeed,  he 
is  in  little  danger  of  committing  positive  error 
in  his  own  practice.  Not  unfrequently,  how- 
ever, he  is  led  into  the  negative  error  of  rejecting 
some  word  or  expression  which  is  perfectly  legiti- 
mate. In  thus  doing  he  necessarily  impairs  his 
own  authority;  especially  so  when  he  aggres- 
sively sets  up  his  individual  condemnation  of 
the  usages  of  men  as  great  as  himself,  if  not 
greater. 

To  the  student  of  English  speech  there  is,  in- 
deed, nothing  at  times  more  entertaining,  or  at 
other  times  more  afflicting,  than  the  statements 
no 


AUTHORITY    OF    GREAT    WRITERS 

of  eminent  authors  upon  the  etymology  of  words, 
and  the  superstructure  of  fictitious  inference  they 
build  upon  the  treacherous  foundations  they 
have  chosen.  To  many  will  occur  Carlyle's 
derivation  of  king  from  can,  therefore  "Can- 
ning, or  man  that  was  able,"  and  the  significance 
he  imparted  to  the  title  as  a  consequence  of  his 
adoption  of  this  mythical  origin  of  the  word. 
In  modem  times,  however,  there  is  but  little 
cf  this  once  reckless  dallying  with  etymology 
by  great  writers.  In  usage,  too,  there  is  much 
hesitation  on  their  part  in  resorting  to  dogmatic 
assertion  on  disputed  points.  Still  it  occurs; 
and  when  it  does,  the  authority  which  its  utterer 
has  gained  in  other  fields  naturally  imposes  upon 
his  fellow-men  in  this.  Such  a  result  is  sure  to 
happen  when  he  is  recognized  as  being  a  careful 
student  of  expression,  and  for  that  reason  en- 
titled to  have  what  he  says  treated  with  respect. 
How  many  men,  for  illustration,  have  been  and 
still  are  affected  by  Macaulay's  denunciation  of 
Croker  as  being  gtiilty  of  ''the  low  vulgarism  of 
mutual  friend.''  The  truth  is  that  the  last  word 
has  not  yet  been  said  as  to  the  propriety  of  this 
phrase.  It  has  never  been  made  the  subject 
of  an  exhaustive  investigation.  But  a  locution, 
which  has  been  employed  by  scores  of  reputable 
writers — including  names  as  eminent  as  Burke, 
III 


THE   STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

Walter  Scott,  Disraeli,  Byron,  and  Browning — 
cannot  properly  be  designated  as  low  or  vulgar. 
Since,  also,  it  has  been  taken  as  the  title  of  a  work 
of  fiction  by  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  popular 
of  English  novelists,  there  is  little  likelihood  of 
its  losing  speedily  its  vitality  in  current  speech. 
Macaulay  himself  would  probably  have  hesitated 
about  resorting  to  this  example,  had  he  taken 
time  to  recall  the  many  excellent  writers  by 
whose  authority  the  practice  of  his  detested  oppo- 
nent was  kept  in  countenance.  With  his  en- 
thusiastic admiration  of  Jane  Austen  he  would 
never  have  been  disposed  to  attribute  to  her  the 
use  of  a  low  vulgarism.  Yet  in  her  novel  of 
Emma  the  heroine  is  represented  as  asking  Mr. 
Knightley  about  the  health  of  "their  mutual 
friends."  All  this  goes  to  show  the  difficulties 
that  lie  in  the  way  of  arriving  at  positive  con- 
clusions. As  long  as  the  propriety  of  the  ex- 
pression remains  unsettled,  it  is  well  for  the 
peace  of  mind  of  the  writer  who  is  sensitive  to 
criticism  to  refrain  from  employing  it.  But  it 
is  equally  advisable  for  him  to  refrain  from  pro- 
claiming the  employment  of  it  by  others  as  some- 
thing unpardonable. 

He,  however,  stands  out  conspicuously  among 
his  fellow -men  who  has  not  some  particular 
word  or  expression  against  which  he  cherishes 

112 


AUTHORITY   OF   GREAT   WRITERS 

a  special  aversion.  Some  of  us,  more  richly 
endowed  with  prejudices,  hold  not  merely  one 
but  several  locutions  in  highest  reprobation. 
In  manifesting  feelings  of  this  sort  we  please 
ourselves  with  the  belief  that  we  are  making 
a  personal  contribution  of  our  own  towards 
preserving  the  language  from  corruption.  This 
might  be  true  were  our  views  invariably  well 
founded.  It  is  an  unfortunate  fact,  however, 
that  the  zeal  of  those  who  take  the  speech  under 
their  care  is  rarely  according  to  knowledge. 
It  is  not,  for  instance,  an  unexampled  thing 
to  find  a  man  censuring  a  perfectly  legitimate 
use  of  a  word  and  almost  in  the  same  breath 
proceeding  to  employ  the  same  word  illegiti- 
mately. 

Take,  for  illustration,  the  adverbial  use  of 
some  in  the  sense  of  'about,'  seen  in  such  an 
expression  as  "some  ten  years,"  and  in  count- 
less similar  ones.  This  usage  goes  back  to  the 
earliest  period  of  the  language.  It  is  not  merely 
colloquial;  it  is  literary.  It  is  safe  to  say — and 
any  one  can  verify  the  assertion  for  himself — 
that  there  is  not  a  classic  author  in  our  speech 
who  has  not  employed  it,  and  in  many  instances 
employed  it  frequently.  Yet  a  usage  which  is 
supported  by  the  authority  of  the  best  writers 
from  the  tenth  to  the  twentieth  century  has  often 
113 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

been  stigmatized  as  improper  by  men  who  seem 
unaware  that  in  so  doing  they  are  simply  pro- 
claiming their  ignorance  of  good  usage.  Here, 
therefore,  is  a  locution  absolutely  correct  which 
has  frequently  been  made  the  subject  of  unin- 
telligent attack. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  another  em- 
ployment of  this  same  word  some  which,  sanc- 
tioned nowhere  by  the  practice  of  the  great 
masters,  is  heard  with  us  frequently  in  con- 
versation and  seen  not  infrequently  in  print. 
This  is  the  use  of  some  in  the  sense  of  'some- 
what.' Expressions  such  as  *'I  looked  at  it 
some";  "I  studied  it  some";  "I  am  some 
tired,"  have  of  late  become  widely  current  in 
this  country.  Apparently  they  meet  with  lit- 
tle notice  or  condemnation.  Such  an  employ- 
ment of  the  word  is  a  characteristic  of  the 
dialect  of  Scotland,  from  which  it  probably 
came  to  us;  for  it  is  unknown,  I  think,  in  Eng- 
land. Unknown  in  the  usage  of  the  educated, 
and  perhaps  also  in  that  of  the  uneducated. 
By  the  lexicographer,  however,  it  is  recognized. 
One  of  the  English  dictionaries  has  this  charac- 
terization of  it.  "In  Scotland,"  it  says,  "as 
well  as  in  the  United  States,  some  is  often  used 
by  the  illiterate  in  the  sense  of  somewhat,  a  lit- 
tle, rather;  as,  *  I  am  some  better';  '  it  is  some 
114 


AUTHORITY    OF    GREAT   WRITERS 

cold.'  "  *  But  this  mark  of  illiteracy  occurs  not 
infrequently  in  the  speech  of  men  who  would 
respnt  an  intimation  to  the  effect  that  they 
were  not  highly  educated.  It  is  even  heard 
occasionally  from  the  lips  of  those  who  profess 
to  be  particular  about  language.  It  is  found 
again  and  again  in  the  columns  of  newspapers — 
of  certain  of  them,  indeed,  which  are  much  exer- 
cised in  spirit  over  the  employment  of  two  or  three 
of  the  most  time-honored  idioms  of  the  speech. 

Now  the  objection  to  the  employment  of  some 
in  the  sense  of  *  somewhat '  does  not  arise  from 
any  sacredness  in  the  word  itself,  or  in  the 
desirability  of  confining  its  meaning  to  a  par- 
ticular sense.  It  rests  upon  the  one  simple  fact 
that  such  employment  of  it  has  not  the  slightest 
sanction  from  good  usage.  To  make  a  general 
denial  always  involves  a  certain  risk.  Yet  one 
may  venture  to  say  that  not  a  single  example 
of  the  use  of  some  in  the  sense  of  'somewhat' 
can  be  found  in  the  writings  of  an  author  of  the 
first  or  even  of  the  second  class  when  he  is 
speaking  in  his  own  person.  Certainly  if  such 
instances  exist,  they  are  excessively  rare.  The 
objection  to  it  is  therefore  the  same  in  kind, 
though  different  in  degree,  as  that  which  exists 

*  The  Imperial  Dictionary  of  the  English  Language, 
under  Some. 

115 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

to  the  adverbial  form  illy.  This  has  some  slight 
authority  in  its  favor.  It  can  be  found — ^rare- 
ly,  to  be  sure,  but  still  it  can  be  found — in  the 
writings  of  Fielding,  Southey,  Washington  Irv- 
ing, and  very  likely  of  several  others  of  equal 
repute.  The  point  to  be  insisted  upon  here  is 
that  the  word  is  not  in  itself  reprehensible.  It 
is  as  bad,  we  are  told,  as  it  would  be  to  say 
welly  for  'well.'  This  is  undeniably  true;  but 
welly  strikes  us  as  ridiculous,  not  to  say  gro- 
tesquely offensive,  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
it  is  absolutely  unknown.  The  objection  to  illy 
is  not  really  an  etymological  one,  nor  even 
that  it  is  an  utterly  unnecessary  form.  It  is 
due  entirely  to  its  lack  of  support  from  good 
usage,  save  on  the  most  limited  scale.  So  long 
as  this  condition  of  things  continues,  the  word 
will  remain  under  the  ban.  He,  therefore,  who  em- 
ploys it  deliberately  does  so  with  the  full  knowledge 
that  he  is  exposing  himself  to  severest  censure, 
and  has  no  right  to  complain  when  he  receives  it. 
A  statement  not  essentially  different  may  be 
made  about  firstly.  This  word,  however,  hap- 
pens to  have  been  employed  by  a  much  larger 
number  of  writers  of  authority.  It  stands  in 
consequence  upon  a  distinctly  better  footing. 
Analogically,  too,  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be 
urged  in  its  favor.  All  the  other  numeral  ad- 
ii6 


AUTHORITY    OF    GREAT    WRITERS 

verbs  of  its  class  end  in  -ly.  Why  should  the 
one  that  begins  the  list  be  made  an  exception  to 
the  general  rule  ?  A  conviction  of  this  sort  must 
have  affected  the  action  of  some  writers  who 
could  not  well  have  been  ignorant  of  the  fact 
that  in  using  -firstly  they  were  running  counter 
to  the  general  practice,  and  would  therefore  ex- 
pose themselves  to  the  prejudice  which  always 
favors  a  long-accepted  usage.  At  all  events,  such 
a  result  followed,  as  any  one  will  discover  who 
takes  the  trouble  to  consult  the  critical  litera- 
ture of  the  past,  and  especially  that  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

It  is  not  alone,  however,  anonymous  writers 
in  periodicals  who  have  found  fault  with  it. 
Attacks  have  been  made  upon  it  by  writers  of 
repute,  by  some  of  high  repute.  *' Firstly  is 
not  English,"  said  Landor  in  one  of  his  Imag- 
inary Conversations.  This  is  the  convenient 
but  not  altogether  convincing  formula  which  is 
commonly  used  to  express  the  severest  con- 
demnation of  some  locution  to  which  the  speaker 
takes  decided  exception.  "I  detest,"  wrote  De 
Quincey,  ''your  ridiculous  and  most  pedantic 
neologism  of  firstly.''  An  illustration  of  the  va- 
rying modern  attitude  in  regard  to  the  word 
can  be  found  in  the  Life  and  Correspondence  of 
Henry  Reeve,  who  edited  the  Edinburgh  Review 
117 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

from  1855  to  1895.  Apparently  the  form  had 
somehow  crept  into  the  columns  of  that  au- 
gust quarterly.  It  called  forth  a  grieved  remon- 
strance from  one  troubled  soul  among  its  readers. 
This,  it  would  seem,  had  been  followed  in  turn  by 
an  apologetic  explanation  from  the  editor,  to  the 
great  satisfaction  of  the  complainant.  "I  am 
much  pleased,"  wrote  Lord  Wensleydale  to 
Reeve,  *  *  to  hear  that  -firstly  was  an  error.  I  hope 
you  will  take  some  course  to  vindicate  your  judg- 
ment—  *a  very  first  authority*  —  and  to  pre- 
vent the  Edinburgh  Review  giving  the  word  its 
high  authority.  I  have  taken  every  opportu- 
nity to  amend  the  error  in  Dom.  Proc.  I  have 
a  sort  of  mania  on  the  subject.  "  Later  in  his 
letter  Lord  Wensleydale  remarked  that  he 
"differed  with"  another  person  about  a  certain 
matter.  It  gives  one  a  conception  of  the  im- 
possibility of  reconciling  the  varying  views  en- 
tertained about  various  points  of  usage  to  find 
the  biographer — a  distinguished  professor  in  an 
English  university — commenting  in  the  follow- 
ing fashion  upon  the  language  of  this  communica- 
tion. "Think,"  said  he,  "of  a  writer  objecting 
to  a  harmless  firstly  and  perpetrating  an  atrocious 
differ  with.''^ 

^  Life  of  Henry  Reeve,  by  J.  K,  Laughton,  vol.  ii., 
p.   126. 

Ii8 


AUTHORITY    OF    GREAT    WRITERS 

The  feeling  —  call  it  mania,  if  you  please  — 
which  leads  men  to  care  for  propriety  of  speech  is 
worthy  of  all  respect ;  but  it  defeats  itself  unless 
it  fortifies  the  positions  it  takes  by  acquiring  the 
preliminary  knowledge  necessary  to  hold  them. 
Men  by  neglecting  to  do  this  are  led  to  injure 
their  own  side  by  making  statements  which  are 
indefensible.  To  start  with,  firstly  is  in  itself, 
in  spite  of  Landor,  as  much  English  as  scarcely 
for  scarce  or  fully  for  jull.  In  the  second  place, 
it  is  not  a  neologism,  as  De  Quincey  asserted. 
It  goes  back  to  the  sixteenth  century.  It  can 
be  found  occasionally  used  in  every  century 
since  by  reputable  writers  and  by  some  who  are 
distinctly  eminent.  It  occurs  not  infrequent- 
ly in  the  correspondence  of  two  of  the  most 
charming  letter-writers  in  our  language.  One 
of  them.  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  be- 
longs to  the  eighteenth  century.  The  other  is 
Byron.  There  is  no  linguistic  peculiarity  more 
observable  in  his  correspondence — nor  is  it  con- 
fined to  that — than  the  constant  appearance 
in  it  of  this  word.  Firstly  occurs  certainly  a 
dozen  times  where  first  occurs  once.  Novelists, 
too,  have  been  more  or  less  addicted  to  the  use 
of  this  fuller  form.  It  is  frequent  in  Dickens; 
it  is  found  in  the  writings  of  Scott,  Charlotte 
Bronte,  Thackeray,  Charles  Kingsley,  Trollope, 

9  119 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

and  Kipling.  To  the  list — undoubtedly  a  very 
incomplete  one — ^may  be  added  the  names  of 
Carlyle  and  Gladstone.  Authorities  like  these 
will  not  save  from  the  censure  of  many  him  who 
employs  the  word.  By  many  more  they  may 
not  be  deemed  sufficient  to  vindicate  its  correct- 
ness. But  on  the  other  hand  they  tend  to  make 
intelligent  criticism  speak  of  it  warily,  if  not  hes- 
itatingly. 


IV 

UNCERTAINTIES    OF    USAGE 

IT  follows  from  what  has  been  said  in  the 
previous  article  that  the  main  question  which 
a  man  ought  to  ask  himself  in  discussing  points 
of  usage  is  something  qmte  different  from  those 
he  is  in  the  habit  of  asking.  It  matters  not 
whether  he  likes  or  dislikes  a  particular  locution ; 
whether  it  is  in  accord  or  not  with  any  theory 
of  propriety  of  speech  he  may  have  adopted; 
whether  or  not  he  is  able  to  satisfy  his  gram- 
matical conscience  in  regard  to  the  purity  of  its 
character.  The  question  is  simply,  Is  the  par- 
ticular word  or  construction  under  consideration 
sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  the  best  writers 
of  the  past  and  of  the  present  ? 

Unfortunately  just  here  arises  the  great  and  as 
yet  unsurmounted  difficulty  which  prevents  any 
satisfactory  settlement  of  numerous  disputes 
concerning  correctness  of  usage.  Whenever 
there  is  a  point  in  doubt,  it  cannot  be  settled  con- 
clusively unless  the  decision  has  been  preceded 

131 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

by  an  examination  which  covers  the  whole  field 
of  the  best  literature,  past  and  present.  While 
theoretically,  therefore,  there  is  no  question  about 
the  standard,  practically  there  is  a  great  deal 
doubtful  about  it  in  particular  cases.  There  is  a 
long  list  of  disputed  locutions  in  regard  to  which 
we  are  not  yet  in  a  position  to  say  which  is  the 
best  prevailing  usage.  No  thorough  attempt  has 
been  made  to  collect  it  and  to  register  it.  The 
syntax,  in  particular,  of  English  speech  has  never 
been  made  the  subject  of  a  systematic  and  ex- 
haustive investigation  which  has  devoted  itself 
to  ascertaining  the  practice  of  its  greatest  writers. 
The  evidence,  so  far  from  being  all  in,  has  on 
many  questions  in  dispute  been  scarcely  collect- 
ed at  all.  Accordingly,  the  generalizations  con- 
tained in  grammars  in  the  shape  of  rules  can  fre- 
quently not  be  received  with  implicit  confidence, 
because  they  have  been  based  upon  insufficient 
data. .  The  work  of  gathering  the  material  upon 
which  to  found  positive  conclusions  remains  in 
many  instances  yet  to  be  performed. 

If  we  often  get  no  help  from  grammars  in  the 
settlement  of  doubtful  points,  we  are  not  much 
better  off  when  we  go  to  dictionaries.  To  a 
limited  extent  these  set  out  to  gather  and  record 
the  best  usage.  Still,  this  part  of  their  work  has 
never  been  made  their  main  object,  or  even  a 

122 


UNCERTAINTIES   OF    USAGE 

main  object.  The  consequence  is  that  what  has 
been  done  has  been  done  in  a  haphazard  and  in- 
complete way.  For  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  in  discussing  the  rightfulness  or  wrongful- 
ness of  a  disputed  locution  it  is  the  authority 
of  good  writers,  and  preferably  of  great  writers, 
that  is  alone  of  weight.  If,  for  illustration,  a 
particular  word  or  construction  is  used  by  some 
obscure  author  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
fact  may  be  of  a  certain  interest  in  recounting 
its  history.  But  with  that  its  importance  would 
end.  If,  however,  it  were  used  by  Milton,  it 
would  occupy  an  entirely  different  position.  An 
example  of  his  employment  of  it  serves  the 
double  purpose  of  proving  its  existence  at  the 
time  and  of  giving  it  the  sanction  of  one  of 
the  great  masters  of  English  speech.  To  the 
writer,  therefore,  the  character  of  the  author  in 
whose  productions  a  word  occurs  is  of  far  more 
importance  than  the  time  of  its  occurrence.  Of 
all  our  lexicographers  Dr.  Johnson  seems  to  have 
been  the  only  one  who  looked  upon  this  portion 
of  his  task  as  of  special  consequence.  To  his 
partial  accomplishment  of  it  his  work  owed  no 
small  share  of  the  success  it  achieved.  But 
by  most  compilers  of  lexicons  the  use  of  a  par- 
ticular locution  by  a  classic  writer  is  regarded 
as  a  mere  incident.  Hence,  in  seeking  authorities 
123 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

for  a  given  usage,  the  best  dictionaries,  indis- 
pensable as  they  are,  largely  fail  us. 

As,  therefore,  the  collecting  and  codifying  of 
the  usage  of  the  classic  writers  of  our  speech  has 
never  been  done,  he  who  discusses  the  subject 
at  present  must  come  before  the  public  imper- 
fectly equipped  for  the  task.  Do  the  best  he 
can,  investigate  as  fully  as  he  may,  his  results 
will  always  lack  completeness.  That  can  only 
be  secured  by  the  efforts  of  bodies  of  men  whose 
labors  cover  the  whole  field  and  are  directed  con- 
jointly to  a  common  end.  Such  organization  has 
never  been  set  on  foot  in  the  case  of  our  own 
speech.  All  attempts  in  this  vast  field  have 
been  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  individual. 
Upon  some  points  under  discussion  his  results 
may  be  sufficient  to  justify  him  in  making  posi- 
tive statements.  But  there  are  others  upon 
which,  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  he 
will  wisely  refrain  from  committing  himself  with 
too  much  assurance,  still  less  with  dogmatism. 
To  make  the  matter  perfectly  clear,  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  consider  in  detail  one  of  the  many 
disputed  usages  about  which  very  positive  pro- 
nouncements are  constantly  made  by  men  who 
have  not  taken  the  pains  to  acqiiire  the  slightest 
familiarity  with  its  history. 

The  poet  Moore  in  his  Diary  tells  us  of  a  con- 
124 


UNCERTAINTIES    OF    USAGE 

versation  he  had  with  a  certain  gentleman  who 
praised  highly  one  of  his  works,  but  found  fault 
with  a  mode  of  expression  which  occurred  in  it 
frequently.  He  had  in  several  instances  made 
use  of  such  phrases  as  "the  three  first  centuries," 
"the  four  first  centuries."  His  usage,  his  critic 
further  informed  him,  was  an  Irishism.  Even 
Burke  had  fallen  into  this  error.  It  has  al- 
ready been  pointed  out,  that  before  the  term 
Americanism  came  to  be  applied  to  a  word  or 
expression  which  the  Englishman,  who  was  par- 
ticularly ignorant  of  his  own  tongue,  deemed  for 
any  reason  objectionable,  he  was  wont  to  stigma- 
tize it  as  an  Irishism  or  Scotticism.  Moore,  it 
is  to  be  added,  stood  up  stoutly  for  the  locution 
he  had  employed.  At  all  events,  whether  he 
had  done  rightly  or  wrongly  in  using  the  word- 
order  criticised,  he  declared  that  he  had  not 
done  so  inadvertently.  In  his  eyes  it  was  the 
true  English  idiom.  "For  instance,"  he  con- 
tinued, "every  one  says  the  'two  first  cantos  of 
Childe  Harold,'  meaning  the  two  cantos  that 
come  first,  or  are  placed  first." 

It  was  in  June,  1833,  that  this  discussion  took 
place.  According  to  Moore,  in  the  use  of  the 
locution  he  preferred  he  was  conforming  to  the 
general  practice  of  his  time.  It  may  be  regard- 
ed as  a  partial  confirmation  of  his  assertion  that 
12$ 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

Byron  in  his  correspondence  invariably  spoke 
of  the  half  of  Childe  Harold  originally  pub- 
lished as  *'the  two  first  cantos."  Moore,  further- 
more, went  on  to  tell  the  tale  of  the  struggles  he 
had  on  this  very  point  with  Simmons,  whom  he 
characterized  as  his  **  valuable  typographer."  It 
will  recall  to  many  authors  similar  experiences 
they  have  had  with  proof-readers.  Simmons 
was  very  anxious  to  have  the  expression  read 
"the  first  two  cantos."  The  poet,  however,  was 
obdurate,  and  succeeded  in  having  his  own  way. 
This  is  not  always  the  fortune  of  the  modern 
writer;  for  the  proof-reader,  having  the  last 
chance  at  the  page,  makes  the  change  he  desires 
just  before  the  work  goes  to  the  press. 

Here  is  a  form  of  expression  in  regard  to  which 
the  fullest  dictionaries  give  us  but  imperfect 
information.  It  is  one  as  to  which  there  has 
never  been  anything  but  the  most  superficial 
examination  of  the  practice  of  great  writers. 
Accordingly,  nothing  exists  to  show  decisively  on 
which  side  the  weight  of  the  best  usage  lies.  The 
question  in  dispute  is  far  from  being  a  simple  one, 
even  were  we  to  govern  ourselves  entirely  by 
reason,  to  which  the  imreasonable  are  always  ap- 
pealing. We  are  told  by  some  of  these  that  the 
word-order  which  Moore  preferred  is  quite  im- 
possible. Two  cannot  have  the  distinction  of 
;26 


UNCERTAINTIES   OF    USAGE 

each  being  first.  That  will  depend  upon  the 
light  in  which  -first  is  regarded.  If  it  is  to  be 
considered  an  ordinal,  no  one  would  be  likely  to 
maintain  that  "  the  two  first"  is  to  be  justified. 
If,  however,  it  be  looked  upon  as  an  adjective, 
Moore's  explanation  of  its  meaning  and  pro- 
priety is  perfectly  satisfactory.  There  is  a  fur- 
ther objection  on  the  score  of  reason  to  the 
order  of  words  proclaimed  as  the  only  reasonable 
one.  The  preferred  expression  is  in  most  cases 
illogical.  "The  first  two"  implies  a  succession 
of  twos,  at  least  a  second  two.  Hence  it  is 
strictly  improper  to  use  it  except  when  there  is 
an  intention  of  conveying  the  idea  that  another 
pair  or  other  pairs  are  to  follow.  In  its  varia- 
tion from  propriety  in  this  respect,  English  has 
gone  further  than  the  other  principal  languages 
of  modern  Europe.  French  and  German  are  in 
full  accordance  with  reason  in  their  usual  arrange- 
ment of  the  words.  In  these  tongues  the  prac- 
tice prevails  of  saying  "  the  two  first."  In  French 
it  is  les  deux  premiers;  in  German,  die  zwei  ersten. 
In  Spanish  and  Italian  the  same  rule  largely 
holds  good,  though  there  is,  perhaps,  greater 
disposition  to  vary  from  it  in  practice. 

For  us,  however,  the  important  question  is  not 
what,  according  to  any  theory,  the  mode  of  ex- 
pression ought  to  be,  but  what  it  actually  is,  as 
137 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

seen  in  the  practice  of  the  best  writers.  At  this 
point  the  uncertainty  which  always  attends  in- 
complete examination  asserts  itself.  Both  locu- 
tions have  been  long  employed.  To  which  does 
the  weight  of  the  most  authoritative  usage  in- 
cline ?  No  one  with  the  knowledge  now  existing 
on  the  subject  can  venture  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion positively.  The  following  statements,  em- 
bodying the  results  of  only  a  partial  investiga- 
tion, are  therefore  given,  subject  to  correction. 
The  probabilities  are  strongly  in  favor  of  their 
accuracy,  but  certainty  cannot  be  assumed. 
For  the  sake  of  convenience  the  example  ad- 
duced by  Moore  is  taken  as  representative  of  the 
whole  class. 

The  statement  which  can  be  made  with  the 
most  confidence  is  that  "the  two  first"  is  pre- 
ferred to  "the  first  two"  in  our  older  speech. 
Indeed,  it  is  not  till  a  period  comparatively  late 
that  the  latter  mode  of  expression  seems  to 
occur  on  any  but  the  most  limited  scale.  The 
earliest  instance  of  its  employment  recorded  by 
the  new  Historical  English  Dictionary  belongs 
to  the  very  close  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
That,  too,  is  taken  from  a  writer  of  no  authority. 
Even  his  use  of  the  locution  was  very  likely  due 
to  the  fact  that  it  is  found  four  times  in  the 
Genevan,  then  the  most  common  version  of  the 
xa8 


UNCERTAINTIES    OF    USAGE 

Bible.  The  history  of  its  appearance  in  that 
work  may  in  truth  be  thought  to  indicate  a  cer- 
tain hesitancy  about  its  employment  by  the 
early  translators.  Take,  for  illustration,  a  part 
of  the  nineteenth  verse  of  the  twenty-third 
chapter  of  second  Samuel,  belonging  to  a  passage 
in  which  is  given  an  account  and  a  comparative 
estimate  of  the  exploits  of  Benaiah.  In  the 
Wycliffite  version  of  the  fourteenth  century  it 
is  said  of  him  that  "he  came  not  to  the  three 
first  men."  In  Coverdale's  version  of  1535  it  is 
said,  "he  came  not  unto  the  three."  In  Mat- 
thew's version,  following  a  few  years  later,  the 
passage  read,  "He  attained  not  unto  those  three 
in  acts,"  but  a  note  in  the  margin  adds,  "under- 
stand the  first  three."  The  Bishop's  Bible  of 
1572  inserted  part  of  this  marginal  explanation 
into  the  text,  enclosing  it  in  parentheses.  It 
read  accordingly,  "He  attained  not  unto  (the 
first)  three."  But  the  Genevan  version  inserted 
"the  first"  without  any  qualification.  In  so 
doing  it  was  followed  by  the  revisers  of  King 
James's. 

There  is  plenty  of  evidence  to  show  that  the 
usage  represented  by  "the  two  first"  was  orig- 
inally the  preferred  one.  Still  that  represent- 
ed by  "the  first  two"  made  its  appearance  as 
early  at  least  as  the  fourteenth  century.  There 
129 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

is  a  striking  example  of  the  use  of  both  methods 
of  expression  standing  side  by  side  in  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  first  Chronicles,  one  in  the  Wycliffite 
version  proper,  the  other  in  Purvey's  recension. 
"Unto  the  three  first  he  came  not,"  says  the 
former;  "He  came  not  till  the  first  three,"  says 
the  latter.  This  early  and  apparently  hitherto 
unnoted  instance  of  what  scholars  regard  as  the 
later  locution  seems  for  centuries  to  have  had 
but  few  if  any  imitators. 

The  second  statement  is  that  up  to  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  probably  later, 
the  word -order  indicated  by  "the  two  first" 
had  pretty  certainly  in  its  favor  the  sanction  not 
only  of  the  most  common  but  of  the  best  usage. 
It  is  noticeable  that  not  a  single  example  of  the 
second  word-order,  given  in  the  Historical  Eng- 
lish Dictionary,  is  taken  from  an  author  who 
would  be  regarded  as  having  any  weight  in  de- 
ciding a  question  of  propriety  of  speech.  The  in- 
ference, accordingly,  is  that  such  did  not  exist. 
What  was  until  a  comparatively  later  period  the 
preferred  mode  of  expression  can  be  indicated  by 
quotations  from  three  authors,  who  represent 
the  language  of  men  belonging  to  distinct  grades 
of  intellectual  achievement.  In  his  tractate 
on  Education,  Milton  referred  to  "the  two  or 
three  first  books  of  Quintilian."  In  his  True 
130 


UNCERTAINTIES    OF    USAGE 

Born  Englishman,  De  Foe,  in  speaking  of  James 
L,  mentions  "the  seven  first  years  of  his  pa- 
cific reign."  Pope  may  be  taken  as  the  best 
representative  of  the  general  practice  of  the 
former  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
revision  which  appeared  in  1743  of  his  great 
satire  contained  in  its  appendix,  among  other 
things,  "the  preface  to  the  five  first  imperfect 
editions  of  the  Dunciad."  Furthermore,  in 
November,  17 14,  in  a  letter  to  Broome,  he 
spoke  of  "these  commentaries  of  Eustathius  on 
the  first  four  Iliads,"  and  in  1724  he  told  the 
same  correspondent  that  *  *  the  verse  of  the  whole 
thirteen  first  books  is  now  done."^  This  word- 
order  continued,  indeed,  to  be  much  later  the 
preferred  form  with  the  best  writers,  though 
steadily  frowned  upon  by  the  rising  body  of 
purists  who  professed  themselves  unable  to 
understand  how  more  than  one  person  could 
ever  be  first.  Gibbon,  for  illustration,  in  the 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  spoke 
of  the  price  of  wheat  under  the  successors  of 
Constantine  as  being  "equal  to  the  average 
price  of  the  sixty-four  first  years  of  the  present 
century."^ 

^Letter  of  April  3,  1724.     Elwyn   and  Coiirthope's 
edition  of  Pope's  Works,  vol.  viii.,  p.  77. 
'Vol.  ii.,  chap.  xxiv. 

131 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

But  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury a  strenuous  propaganda  began  to  exert  it- 
self in  favor  of  the  mode  of  expression  indicated 
by  "  the  first  two."  From  that  day  to  this  it 
has  gone  on  laboring  unceasingly.  It  is  the 
word-order  almost  invariably  held  up  as  the  only 
correct  one  in  manuals  of  usage;  and  however 
little  such  works  affect  the  action  of  men  of  letters 
or  the  belief  of  scholars,  they  unquestionably 
have  a  good  deal  of  influence  upon  the  practice 
of  many,  which  in  time  tends  to  affect  that  of 
all.  By  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury this  hostile  attitude  towards  the  earlier 
locution  was  making  itself  distinctly  felt.  For 
illustration,  the  Monthly  Review,  the  leading  crit- 
ical periodical  of  that  time,  had  made  use  of 
the  expression,  *'the  three  first."  It  was  im- 
mediately taken  to  task  by  a  correspondent.  For 
once  an  editor,  ensconced  behind  his  bulwark  of 
type,  submitted  meekly  to  reproof.  Instead  of 
defending  himself,  as  he  might  easily  have  done, 
by  the  authority  of  the  greatest  of  his  con- 
temporaries, Johnson,  Burke,  and  Gibbon,  he 
surrendered  incontinently.  *' Thanks  to  Ami- 
cus," he  said  in  the  notice  to  correspondents  in 
the  number  for  December,  1784.  "He  is  very 
right.  •  The  first  three  '  is  conformable  to  our 
usual  mode  of  expression;  and  *the  three  first* 
132 


UNCERTAINTIES    OF    USAGE 

was  a  slip."  Just  as  subservient  to  the  belief 
in  the  assumed  error,  but  not  so  submissive  to 
reproof,  was  the  rival  periodical.  The  Critical 
Review  had  printed  a  hostile  notice  of  the 
Anti-Lucretius  of  George  Canning,  the  father 
of  a  much  more  celebrated  son.  Naturally  the 
author  did  not  like  it.  The  following  year 
he  brought  out  a  pamphlet  containing  an  ap- 
peal to  the  public  against  the  malicious  mis- 
representations, impudent  falsifications,  and  im- 
just  decisions  of  the  anonymous  fabricators  of 
the  Critical  Review.  Canning  forgot  that  the 
conductors  of  periodical  publications  of  any 
sort  have  the  advantage  of  never  fighting  in 
the  open.  Accordingly  they  can  venture  to  say 
in  their  collective  capacity  what  not  an  indi- 
vidual among  them  would  dare  utter  were  he 
compelled  to  give  his  name.  The  critic  resorted 
to  one  of  the  then  usual  devices  for  warding  off 
blame.  It  was  not  his  fault,  but  that  of  the 
printer.  He  admitted  that  he  had  been  de- 
tected in  an  inaccurate  expression — "the  three 
first  books."  But  it  was  on  the  cover  of  the 
review  in  the  department  of  the  compositor. 
In  consequence  the  injured  author  was  welcome 
to  applaud  his  own  sagacity  and  enjoy  the  tri- 
umph.* 

^Critical  Review,  vol.  xxiii,,  p.  76.     January,  1767. 
133 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

Both  of  these  locutions  exist  now  side  by  side. 
Since  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  one 
of  them  indeed  has  been  constantly  denounced 
by  verbal  critics,  the  other  proclaimed  by  them 
as  the  one  alone  justifiable.  How  far  these  in- 
junctions have  affected  the  practice  of  the  great 
writers  of  the  past  hundred  years  no  one  has 
taken  the  pains  to  inform  us,  even  if  he  has  in- 
formed himself.  Yet  such  an  investigation  is  a 
necessary  preliminary  to  reaching  any  conclu- 
sion worth  heeding  upon  the  point  in  dispute. 
That  it  has  affected  the  practice  of  inferior 
writers  there  can  be  no  question ;  but  while  that 
may  exhibit  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  language, 
it  cannot  of  itself  justify  usage.  Not  until  a 
complete  examination  shall  have  been  made  of 
the  works  of  the  greatest  authors  of  the  past  cen- 
tury and  of  the  comparative  frequency  of  their 
employment  of  both  modes  of  expression,  will 
any  one  be  in  a  position  to  decide  whether  the 
best  usage  resorts  to  each  of  the  two  indifferent- 
ly, or  tends  to  adopt  one  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
other. 

The  account  just  given  shows  clearly  that  to 
reach  correct  conclusions  about  propriety  of 
speech  is  in  numerous  instances  far  from  being  an 
easy  task,  however  easy  many  make  it  for  them- 
selves. No  one  who  studies  the  subject  thorough- 
134 


UNCERTAINTIES    OF    USAGE 

ly  will  look  upon  it  as  the  occupation  of  idle 
moments  or  resort  to  it  as  an  occasion  for  pass- 
ing hasty  judgments.  It  behooves  him,  indeed, 
to  be,  above  all  things,  circumspect  who  sets 
out  to  express  positive  opinions  on  matters 
where  usage  varies  widely.  Yet  it  is  perfectly 
safe  to  assert  that  there  is  no  one  department 
of  human  instruction  undertaken  with  more 
thoughtless  self-confidence  or  with  less  apprecia- 
tion of  the  necessity  of  that  preliminary  equip- 
ment which  consists  in  making  one's  self  rea- 
sonably familiar  with  words  and  constructions 
as  employed  in  the  classics  of  our  tongue.  As 
a  consequence  the  course  commonly  followed 
has  been  attended  with  some  most  astounding 
results.  There  is  not  a  single  great  author  in  our 
literature  in  whose  works  numerous  errors  have 
not  been  pointed  out  or  thought  to  be  pointed 
out.  They  are  charged  with  violating  rules  in- 
volving the  purity  if  not  the  permanence  of 
the  language.  A  somewhat  depressing  inference 
follows  from  the  situation  thus  revealed.  The 
ability  to  write  English  correctly  does  not  be- 
long to  the  great  masters  of  our  speech.  It  is 
limited  to  the  obscure  men  who  have  devoted 
themselves  to  the  task  of  showing  how  far  these 
vaunted  writers  have  fallen  short  of  the  ideas 
of  linguistic  propriety  entertained  by  their  un- 
135 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

recognized  betters.  As  a  result  of  these  critical 
crusades  there  is  no  escape  from  the  dismal  con- 
clusion that  the  correct  use  of  the  language  is 
not  to  be  found  in  the  authors  whom  every  one 
reads  with  pleasure,  but  is  an  accomplishment 
reserved  exclusively  for  those  whom  nobody  can 
succeed  in  reading  at  all. 

The  very  statement  of  such  a  condition  of 
things  carries  with  it  the  condemnation  of  the 
processes  by  which  it  has  been  brought  about. 
Not  that  it  is  the  intention  to  maintain  here  that 
the  great  writer  cannot  fall  into  error.  That 
he  does  so  is  certain.  It  happens,  indeed,  far 
less  frequently  than  is  commonly  asserted.  Still, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  through  haste  or  heed- 
lessness or  even  pure  ignorance  the  most  scru- 
pulous is  sometimes  betrayed  into  language  of 
doubtful  propriety,  if  not  of  positive  impro- 
priety. Here,  of  course,  is  meant  not  the  dis- 
regard of  the  numerous  observances  and  re- 
strictions which  every  callow  student  of  speech 
thinks  it  his  duty  to  set  up,  but  the  commission 
of  errors  which  would  be  looked  upon  as  errors 
by  the  whole  body  of  cultivated  men  and  would 
be  acknowledged  as  such  by  the  author  himself 
the  instant  his  attention  was  called  to  them. 
Even  he  who  strives  with  the  utmost  solicitude 
for  what  he  deems  correctness  of  expression  will 
136 


UNCERTAINTIES    OF    USAGE 

be  more  fortunate  than  most  if  some  lapse  into 
which  he  has  been  betrayed  never  reveals  itself 
to  him  until  what  he  has  written  has  been  en- 
shrined in  the  immutability  of  print. 

There  is  nothing,  indeed,  to  give  the  great 
author  absolutely  complete  possession  of  all 
the  facts  of  language — which  are  in  truth  in- 
finite— any  more  than  the  facts  of  any  other 
branch  of  knowledge.  Mistakes  accordingly 
must  occur.  Even  writers  of  the  highest  grade 
have  gone  down  before  the  confusion  which 
exists  in  colloquial  speech  between  lay  and  lie. 
The  example  usually  furnished  of  this  is  found 
in  Byron's  words,  "There  let  him  lay,"  contained 
in  the  apostrophe  to  the  ocean  with  which 
Childe  Harold  concludes.  But  this  is  really 
an  unsatisfactory  one.  There  is  little  question 
that  here  the  word  was  resorted  to  intentionally 
and  not  inadvertently.  The  poet  wanted  a 
rhyme  to  hay  and  spray,  and  accordingly  gram- 
mar was  made  to  bow  to  the  necessities  of  the 
verse.  But  Byron  must  not  only  have  been 
aware  that  his  use  of  the  verb  was  common  in 
colloquial  speech,  but  with  his  wide  reading  of 
literature  he  could  hardly  have  failed  to  observe 
that  it  also  appeared  occasionally  in  reputable 
English  authors,  and  in  a  few  that  can  justly  be 
called  classic. 

137 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

Certain  of  these  examples  are  so  striking  as  to 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  in  the  minds  of  some 
no  real  distinction  existed  in  the  use  of  the  two 
words.  The  confusion  of  lay  with  lie  naturally 
goes  back  to  the  period  when  the  preterite  of 
the  one  verb  came  to  have  precisely  the  same 
form  as  the  present  and  infinitive  of  the  other. 
It  would  not  be  surprising,  therefore,  to  find  the 
two  confounded,  as  they  are  now  by  the  un- 
educated or  the  imperfectly  educated.  Yet 
there  are  examples  of  the  employment  of  the  one 
for  the  other  where  no  plea  can  be  set  up  on 
the  ground  of  ignorance,  no  palliation  can  be 
offered  on  the  ground  of  haste  or  carelessness, 
no  justification  on  the  ground  of  real  or  fancied 
poetic  necessity.  Bacon  tells  us  in  one  place 
that  **  nature  will  lay  buried  a  great  time  and 
yet  revive  upon  the  occasion  of  temptation."^ 
The  sentence  containing  this  passage  was  added 
to  the  enlarged  final  edition  of  the  Essays  which 
appeared  in  1625,  dedicated  to  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham.  The  form  is  therefore  found  in  a 
work  which  had  been  written  deliberately  and 
had  been  revised  carefully.  There  is  hardly 
any  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  Bacon  re- 
garded the  usage  as  allowable. 

*  Essay  on  Nature  in  Men. 
»38 


UNCERTAINTIES    OF    USAGE 

This  view  is  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  later 
in  the  same  century,  and  during  a  large  share 
of  the  century  which  followed,  the  use  of  lay 
for  lie  can  be  found  in  the  writings  of  authors 
who  were  at  least  respectable  and  in  some  in- 
stances fairly  eminent.  It  is  accordingly  rea- 
sonable to  believe  that  while  in  certain  cases 
it  was  a  blunder,  in  others  it  was  deliberately 
employed  because  it  was  deemed  correct.  Oc- 
casional examples  of  the  confusion  between 
these  two  words  can  be  observed  in  Pepys, 
Fielding,  Mason,  Cumberland,  Horace  Walpole, 
besides  a  number  of  writers  who,  however,  under 
no  pretence  can  be  reckoned  as  authorities. 
In  nautical  language,  in  fact,  the  use  of  lay  for 
lie  may  be  said  to  have  definitely  established 
itself  with  us  in  certain  expressions.  A  general 
tendency  to  confound  the  two  was  at  one  time 
existent  and  to  some  extent  still  is.  Mrs. 
Montagu,  the  head  of  the  blue-stocking  world, 
wrote  in  1766  to  Beattie,  "I  wish  that  Ossian's 
poems  were  la3ring  by  me."  Walter  Scott, 
in  one  verse  certainly,  said  laid'st  for  lay'st.  In 
the  account  of  the  nominal  author  given  in  a 
letter  included  in  the  introduction  to  Knicker- 
bocker's History  of  New  York  mention  is  made 
of  *  *  old  mouldy  books  laying  about  at  sixes  and 
sevens."  This  may  have  been  intentional  on 
139 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

Irving 's  part.  But  no  such  explanation  can 
be  given  of  the  usage  which  is  put  in  the  mouth 
of  the  hero  of  TroUope's  novel  of  The  Belton 
Estate.  "What  is  the  use,"  says  he,  **of  laying 
in  bed  when  one  has  had  enough  of  sleep?" 

But  among  authors  of  any  rank  the  most  in- 
corrigible offender,  from  the  grammarian's  point 
of  view,  was  Sterne.  That  lay  for  lie  does  not 
constantly  appear  in  his  writings  in  modern 
editions  is  due  not  to  him,  but  to  the  editors  of 
his  works.  Contemporary  critics  attacked  him 
for  perpetrating  **  such  English";  but  their  cen- 
sure had  no  effect  upon  his  practice.  When 
in  1768  his  Sentimental  Journey  was  published, 
the  leading  review  of  the  day  savagely  assailed 
him  for  adopting  a  vulgarism  characteristic  "of 
a  city  news-writer,"  it  said.  "But  Maria  laid 
in  my  bosom,"  wrote  Sterne.  "Our  readers," 
remarked  the  irate  reviewer,  "may  possibly  con- 
clude that  Maria  was  the  name  of  a  favorite 
pullet."  Sterne's  indifference  to  the  rebukes 
he  received  on  this  particular  point  seems  to 
indicate  that  he  was  one  of  those  who  regarded 
the  usage  as  proper. 

This  account  of  lay  and  lie  has  been  given  so 

fully,  not  to  disprove  the  theory  that  the  usage 

of  the  best  writers  is  the  standard  of  speech,  but 

to  establish  the  truth  of  it  beyond  dispute.     It 

140 


UNCERTAINTIES    OF    USAGE 

brings  out  sharply  two  decisive  points  which  are 
to  be  kept  constantly  in  mind.  One  is  that  the 
errors  into  which  the  great  author  falls  are  not 
only  exceptions  to  his  usual  practice,  but  they 
are  very  rare  exceptions.  It  is  what  he  does 
regularly  which  serves  as  a  model  for  imitation, 
not  what  he  may  occasionally  be  betrayed  into 
doing  through  heedlessness,  or  even  induced  to 
adopt  designedly.  The  other  is  that  these  errors 
are  not  only  committed  rarely  by  writers  of  the 
highest  grade,  but  by  the  vast  majority  of  them 
they  are  never  committed  at  all.  When  we 
take  into  consideration  the  millions  of  times  in 
which  lay  and  lie  are  confounded  in  popular 
speech,  and  the  petty  number  of  instances  of  such 
confusion  that  can  be  gleaned  from  the  most 
exhaustive  study  of  all  our  great  authors,  we 
recognize  what  it  is  that  constitutes  that  con- 
sensus of  which  Quintilian  speaks  as  the  au- 
thority to  which  we  all  have  to  submit. 

No  better  proof  indeed  is  there  of  the  right  to 
rule  which  inheres  in  the  collective  body  of  great 
authors  than  the  fact  that  so  few  errors  of  this 
sort  occur  in  the  heat  of  composition  or  pass  un- 
challenged in  revision.  The  wonder  must  al- 
ways be,  not  that  they  happen,  but  that  they 
happen  so  rarely.  Least  of  all  should  linguistic 
students  make  their  appearance,  if  they  do  ap- 
141 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

pear,  a  matter  of  reproach,  when  we  find  a 
similar  confusion  between  set  and  sit  in  the  writ- 
ings of  a  professed  philologist.  The  late  George 
Perkins  Marsh  was  one  of  the  foremost  promoters 
of  English  scholarship.  To  the  students  of  the 
former  generation  his  works  did  more  than  fur- 
nish instruction;  they  were  an  inspiration.  Yet 
in  the  second  of  his  lectures  on  the  English 
language  he  speaks  of  a  person  giving  "a  cluck 
with  his  mouth  not  unlike  the  note  of  a  setting 
hen."  One  would  naturally  suppose  that  a 
linguistic  scholar,  who  was  in  addition  a  stern 
critic  of  usage,  ought  to  know  sooner  than  any 
one  else  that,  though  anybody  can  set  a  hen,  the 
hen  herself  sits.  The  confusion  of  the  two  verbs 
is,  however,  so  common  in  conversation  that  it 
is  liable  at  any  time  to  appear  in  print.  The 
only  thing  remarkable  about  the  example  just 
given  is  that  it  should  occur  where  it  does. 


SCHOOL-MASTERING   THE    SPEECH 

IN  questions  of  disputed  propriety  of  usage 
it  is  not  the  voice  of  any  single  writer,  no 
matter  how  eminent,  which  settles  definitively 
the  correctness  or  incorrectness  of  a  particular 
locution.  It  is  the  concurrent  voice  of  all. 
From  that  there  is  no  appeal.  Individuals  may 
err;  not  so  the  collective  body.  This  wields 
an  authority  that  cannot  be  successfully  defied 
or  even  disputed. 

It  is,  of  course,  conceivable  that  a  mati  may 
insist  that  a  particular  word  or  constructidh 
which  has  been  employed,  for  instance,  by  the 
translators  of  the  Bible,  by  Shakespeare,  Mil- 
ton, Dry  den.  Pope,  Gray,  Johnson,  Goldsmith, 
Wordsworth,  Macaulay,  Tennyson  —  to  cite  a 
few — is  wrong  and  should  be  avoided.  With 
such  a  person,  if  he  exist,  controversy  cannot 
well  be  carried  on.  There  is  no  common  ground 
upon  which  the  disputants  can  meet.  Still,  it 
is  not  likely,  wherever  agreement  prevails  in 
143 


THE    STANDARD   OF    U;SAGE 

the  usage  of  the  very  best  writers,  that  any  one 
would  knowingly  set  up  against  their  united 
authority  either  his  own  opinion  or  the  opinion 
of  any  grammarian.  He  might  have  the  dis- 
position; he  would  pretty  surely  lack  the  req- 
uisite impudence.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  as  we 
shall  see  later,  he  frequently  does  set  up  his 
opinion  against  their  united  authority.  But 
that  is  not  because  he  possesses  daring,  but  be- 
cause he  lacks  knowledge.  He  censures,  as  he 
supposes,  the  individual  writer.  Had  he  been 
aware  that  the  whole  body  of  great  authors  was 
included  in  his  attack,  he  might  indeed  have 
solaced  himself  in  private  with  the  consciousness 
of  his  superiority  to  them  all;  but  before  the 
public  he  would  have  taken  care  to  preserve 
silence. 

The  examples  which  have  been  given  of  dif- 
ference of  usage  in  the  case  of  locutions  like 
the  two  first,  firstly,  and  our  mutual  friend  show 
what  caution  must  be  exercised  in  many  in- 
stances, what  pains  must  be  taken  before  the 
student  of  speech  can  be  in  a  position  to  justify 
any  announcement  he  makes  of  his  conclusions. 
Even  much  fuller  must  be  the  more  delicate 
sifting  of  evidence  which  will  enable  the  inves- 
tigator, wherever  variation  exists  between  two 
different  modes  of  expression,  to  decide  whether 
144 


SCHOOL-MASTERING    THE   SPEECH 

the  language  is  tending  towards  the  exclusive 
adoption  of  one  of  them  or  is  disposed  to  retain 
both.  Take  the  case  of  the  verb  thrive.  At 
present  it  is  inflected  according  to  either  the 
strong  or  the  weak  conjugation — that  is  to  say, 
we  use  indifferently  and  with  equal  propriety 
in  the  preterite  and  past  participle  throve, 
thriven,  or  simply  thrived  for  both.  Is  there  a 
disposition  to  settle  upon  the  adoption  of  one  of 
these  methods  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other? 
In  the  eighteenth  century  the  superficial  ob- 
server would  have  been  tempted  to  say  that  the 
weak  inflection  would  in  time  become  the  only 
one.  In  the  nineteenth  century  a  similar  ob- 
server would  have  been  led  to  express  the  opin- 
ion that  the  verb  was  going  over  entirely  to  the 
strong  conjugation.  But  no  thorough  examina- 
tion of  the  best  usage  during  either  of  these 
periods  has  ever  been  made.  There  is,  in  con- 
sequence, no  room  for  dogmatic  assertion.  The 
inflection  of  thrive  according  to  the  weak  or  the 
strong  conjugation  is,  therefore,  with  us  now 
merely  a  matter  of  personal  preference.  All 
that  we  can  safely  say  further  is  that  such  it 
seems  likely  to  remain,  so  far  as  the  known  data 
in  regard  to  its  employment  permit  us  to  form 
an  opinion. 

It    has    already    been    remarked    that     this 
145 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

preliminary  preparation  of  investigation  and 
thought,  required  to  fit  one  to  discuss  properly 
disputed  questions  of  speech,  is  not  ordinarily 
regarded  as  in  the  least  degree  essential  by  those 
who  assume  the  office  of  instructors  in  good 
usage.  It  is  much  easier  to  lay  down  rules  of 
one's  own  devising,  based  though  they  be  upon 
insufficient  knowledge  and  inadequate  linguistic 
training,  and,  according  as  others  observe  or 
fail  to  observe  these,  pronounce  decisively  upon 
the  verbal  or  grammatical  correctness  of  what 
they  say.  This  eourse  has  further  the  warrant, 
to  no  slight  extent,  of  worldly  wisdom.  Men 
like  positiveness  in  those  who  set  out  to  act  as 
their  guides.  In  matters  of  usage  in  particular 
they  prefer  the  certainty  of  dogmatic  utterance 
to  the  hesitancy  of  statement  which  arises  from 
the  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  the  field  under 
discussion  has  been  but  partially  surveyed,  and 
that  conclusions  founded  upon  the  little  that 
has  been  ascertained  are  liable  to  modification 
if  not  to  reversal.  They  are  consequently  will- 
ing and  even  eager  to  heed  the  words  of  any  one 
who  takes  it  upon  himself  to  direct  them  with 
sufficient  assurance,  no  matter  what  may  be  his 
qualifications. 

One  result  of  this  readiness  on  the  part  of  the 
mass  of  men  to  accept  any  one  as  authority  who 
146 


SCHOOL-MASTERING    THE    SPEECH 

chooses  to  proclaim  himself  as  such  is  that  the 
language  has  for  a  long  time  been  undergoing  the 
process  which  the  late  Professor  Whitney  used 
to  describe  as  that  of  being  school -mastered. 
Instead  of  following  a  natural  normal  develop- 
ment upon  the  lines  laid  down  by  the  great 
writers  of  our  literature,  a  set  of  artificial  rules 
for  the  regulation  of  expression  have  been  and 
from  time  to  time  still  are  announced.  Some  of 
these  are  imported  from  alien  tongues.  Some 
are  the  creation  of  men  who,  not  knowing  what 
good  usage  is,  have  sought  to  impose  upon  the 
speech  their  crude  notions  of  what  it  ought  to  be. 
To  a  certain  extent  these  have  been  adopted  in 
grammars.  As  a  consequence  they  are  taught 
by  scores  of  teachers,  occasionally  even  by  those 
connected  with  our  higher  institutions  of  learn- 
ing. This  observation  does  not,  of  course,  apply 
to  all  granmiars  any  more  than  it  does  to  all 
institutions;  in  particular  it  does  not  apply  to 
any  of  the  larger  German  grammars  of  our  speech. 
These,  being  the  work  of  scholars,  follow  the 
methods  of  scholars.  Accordingly,  they  base 
their  conclusions  not  upon  any  preconceived 
opinions  of  propriety,  but  upon  the  actual  prac- 
tice of  eminent  writers.  But  the  statement  is 
true  of  too  many  of  these  manuals  in  our  own 
tongue.  So  far  as  the  artificial  standards  set  up 
147 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

in  them  are  accepted,  they  tend  to  cramp  ex- 
pression and  to  put  formal  and  pedantic  utter- 
ance in  the  place  of  that  which  is  natural  and 
idiomatic. 

Herein  lies  the  sole  justification  for  the  com- 
plaint made  by  Forster  and  others  that  the  study 
of  grammar  portends  and  paves  the  way  for  the 
ruin  of  style.  It  is  not  grammar  itself,  but  gram- 
mar falsely  so  called,  that  can  by  any  possibility 
produce  such  an  effect.  The  peril,  too,  is  exag- 
gerated. It  is  mainly  by  the  semi-educated  in 
language  that  all  recommendations  or  denun- 
ciations found  in  works  of  this  character  are  re- 
ligiously heeded.  They  can  scarcely  be  said  to 
affect  to  any  extent  worth  considering  the  prac- 
tice of  eminent  writers.  These  are  much  more 
familiar  with  and  naturally  are  much  more 
acted  upon  by  the  great  literature  of  the  past 
than  by  any  grammatical  treatises  of  the  present. 
Furthermore,  it  is  rarely  the  case  that  injunc- 
tions of  the  sort  here  indicated  come  from  men 
whom  such  writers  regard  as  being  entitled  to 
speak  with  authority.  Authors  of  the  first  rank 
are  as  little  disposed  to  originate  these  artificial 
restraints  upon  expression  as  they  are  to  respect 
them.  Perhaps  the  only  exception  that  can 
be  found  is  that  of  Walter  Savage  Landor.  He 
scattered  broadcast  criticisms  upon  points  of 
148 


SCHOOL-MASTERING    THE    SPEECH 

usage,  and  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  decide  whether 
in  so  doing  he  displayed  more  whimsicalness  or 
ignorance.  Still,  his  literary  position  was  such 
as  to  give  a  certaifi  vogue  to  the  wildest  vagaries 
he  originated  or  adopted. 

Landor's  reckless  assaults  upon  'the  ver- 
nacular idiom' — to  use  a  phrase  of  Bentley's 
which  he  put  under  the  ban — furnishes  a  most 
amusing  chapter  in  his  stormy  life.  Like  all 
who  set  out  to  be  purists,  he  would  now  and  then 
select  some  one  word  or  expression  to  bear  the 
opprobrium  of  corrupting  the  speech,  while  he 
employed  without  hesitation  scores  of  others 
which  were  exactly  in  the  same  class,  and  there- 
fore justly  exposed  to  the  same  objection.  Noth- 
ing, for  instance,  is  more  common  in  language 
than  to  use  a  word  both  in  a  general  and  in 
a  specific  sense,  or  even  in  different  specific 
senses.  Illustrations  of  it  abound  in  our  daily 
speech,  Landor  fixed  his  eye  upon  one  example 
of  this  practice.  He  fell  foul  of  the  noun  execu- 
tioner. That  word  had  been  regularly  used  since 
the  fifteenth  century  to  designate  specifically  the 
person  inflicting  the  death  penalty,  preferably 
by  hanging  or  beheading,  though  sometimes  ex- 
tended to  other  modes.  Naturally  the  corre- 
sponding limiting  significations  had  likewise 
attached  themselves  to  execution  and  execute. 
149 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

Such  a  use  of  the  three  words  had  been  made  for 
generations  by  every  writer  who  needed  for  any 
reason  to  employ  them.  The  same  course  will 
doubtless  continue  to  be  followed  so  long  as  the 
language  exists.  But  Landor  for  some  reason 
took  it  into  his  head  that  this  was  all  wrong. 
Executioner  ought  not  to  denote  the  hangman. 
The  term,  he  insisted,  was  more  appropriate  to 
the  judge  whose  business,  according  to  him,  was 
to  execute  the  laws.  It  was  useless  to  tell  him 
that  an  authority  far  mightier  than  he  had  set- 
tled the  meaning  long  before  he  was  born. 

Not  improbably  such  utterances  as  these  have 
influenced  to  some  extent  the  conduct  and  belief 
of  inferior  men  who  have  transferred  to  Landor 's 
linguistic  dicta  a  deference  due  to  the  knowledge 
and  ability  he  displayed  in  other  matters.  But, 
man  of  genius  as  he  was,  his  pronouncements 
upon  usage  never  affected  the  practice  of  writ- 
ers who  were  his  equals  or  superiors.  One  ex- 
ception there  is  to  this  statement.  It  is  so 
curious  that  it  deserves  recital.  The  neologism 
of  would  better  with  the  infinitive  instead  of  had 
better  owes  what  little  headway  it  has  made 
to  Landor 's  advocacy.  The  sole  example,  how- 
ever of  its  employment  by  any  other  writer 
of  the  first  class  which  I  have  been  able  to 
discover  occurs  in  Browning.  The  concluding 
150 


SCHOOL-MASTERING    THE    SPEECH 

scene  of  Pippa  Passes  is  taken  up  mainly  with 
a  dialogue  between  Monsignor  and  the  intendant. 
The  latter  gives  utterance  to  a  desire  to  be  asked 
what  service  he  had  done  the  bishop's  brother. 
In  the  reply,  as  it  originally  appeared,  Mon- 
signor is  represented  as  using  the  English  of 
literature,  the  English  of  good  writers,  past  and 
present,  and  consequently  saying,  *'  I  had  better 
not."  But  later  in  life  Browning  revised  the 
work  and  changed  the  expression  into  the  un- 
idiomatic  and  really  meaningless  "  I  would  better 
not."  But  it  was  not  to  the  teaching  of  any 
grammati caster  that  his  error  was  due.  He  made 
the  alteration,  as  he  acknowledged,  in  defer- 
ence to  Landor.  He  defended  it  upon  what  he 
called  his  friend's  magisterial  authority.  He 
even  united  himself  to  him  in  a  common  bond 
of  ignorance  by  adopting  as  his  own  the  long- 
exploded  derivation  which  regarded  /  had  as  an 
expansion  of  I'd  contracted  from  /  would. 

At  the  present  day  these  attempts  at  school- 
mastering  the  speech  are  going  on  all  the  while 
before  our  eyes.  One  agency  in  particular 
which  is  working  havoc  in  the  minds  of  many 
is  the  disposition  to  insist  that  the  modern 
signification  of  a  word  or  its  modern  grammatical 
construction  shall  conform  to  its  derivation. 
This  is  a  delusion  to  which  men  who  aspire  to 

IX  151 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

be  considered  cultivated  are  peculiarly  sus- 
ceptible. One  point  indeed  there  is  which  the 
average  man  of  education,  or  rather  the  man  of 
average  education,  seems  wholly  incapable  of 
comprehending.  He  cannot  be  made  to  see 
that  it  is  the  meaning  which  living  men  put  into 
the  words  they  use  that  is  alone  of  any  signif- 
icance; that  of  very  trifling  significance  is  the 
meaning  that  dead  men  have  given  to  those  from 
which  the  former  have  come.  To  the  prevalence 
of  this  hallucination — for  hallucination  it  is  in 
the  strict  etymological  sense  of  that  term — 
we  owe  the  efforts  constantly  put  forth  to  alter 
the  speech  of  our  fathers  and  to  limit  freedom 
of  expression. 

Of  course  were  men  to  set  out  seriously  to  reg- 
ulate the  whole  speech  in  accordance  with  this 
principle,  the  language  would  at  once  be  thrown 
into  a  state  of  wildest  confusion.  There  is  not 
a  day  of  our  lives  in  which  we  do  not  use  a  large 
number  of  words  in  a  meaning  not  merely  in- 
consistent with  their  derivation,  but  in  actual 
defiance  of  it.  We  speak  of  December  as  the 
twelfth  month  of  the  year,  though  etymolog- 
ically  it  is  the  tenth.  Necessarily  a  similar 
statement  is  true  of  the  three  months  preceding 
it.  We  designate  the  political,  literary,  and 
scientific  periodicals  which  come  out  weekly,  and 
152 


SCHOOL-MASTERING    THE    SPEECH 

even  monthly,  by  the  name  of  journals,  as  do 
the  French  from  whom  we  took  the  word.  Were 
we  under  the  bondage  of  derivation,  we  should 
have  to  limit  the  use  to  a  daily  paper.  An 
anecdote,  linguistically  speaking,  is  strictly  some- 
thing which  has  never  been  published.  It  is  a 
portion  of  secret  history  that  for  the  first  time 
has  been  revealed.  Very  severe  censures  were 
once  passed  upon  those  who  used  it  in  the  sense 
in  which  everybody  uses  it  to-day.  No  one 
would  now  think  of  restricting  its  employment 
to  its  etymological  signification.  With  us,  in- 
deed, the  fault  that  is  found  with  anecdotes  is  not 
so  much  that  they  have  never  been  published, 
but  that  they  have  been  published  altogether 
too  often. 

These  illustrations  of  the  fallaciousness  of 
basing  present  meaning  upon  derivation  ought 
to  be  sufficient.  But  so  great  a  hold  has  the 
belief  in  it  over  the  minds  of  men,  especially  of 
educated  men,  so  much  respect  is  often  paid  to 
it  by  them,  that  it  is  perhaps  worth  while  to 
give  a  few  more  examples  out  of  the  vast  num- 
ber that  exist.  Take  the  case  of  the  word 
manufacture.  By  derivation  it  means  something 
made  by  hand.  Its  signification  has  now  so  far 
departed  from  its  etymology  that  the  present 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  manufacttired 
153 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

articles  is  that  they  are  not  made  by  hand. 
In  the  case  of  manuscript  the  sense  still  con- 
tinues to  remain  fairly  faithful  to  the  derivation. 
But  the  increasing  use  of  the  typewriter  is  cer- 
tain to  cause  the  term  to  wander  away  from 
its  strict  signification.  Another  example,  as 
striking  as  manufacture,  of  this  same  etymologi- 
cal perversity  is  seen  in  manosuvre.  The  word, 
whether  as  noun  or  verb,  did  not  come  into  use 
till  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Strictly  it  can  only  mean  *  work  with  the  hand ' ; 
in  all  its  existing  senses  it  refers  to  actions  which 
are  the  result  of  the  operations  of  the  mind* 
In  truth,  the  fact  that  manoeuvre  and  manure 
are  precisely  the  same  word,  so  far  as  their  origin 
is  concerned,  reveals  at  a  glance  the  worthless- 
ness  of  relying  upon  derivation  as  a  final  au- 
thority for  present  meaning. 

Influences  of  various  sorts  have  often  affected 
or  established  the  meaning  of  words  of  which 
their  originals  give  of  themselves  not  the 
slightest  indication.  Knave  is  by  derivation  a 
boy.  The  current  sense  conveys  to  us  no  re- 
minder of  the  etymological.  When  we  see  or 
hear  the  bugle,  no  thought  of  the  horn  of  the 
wild  ox  presents  itself  to  our  minds.  When 
we  speak  of  a  canopy,  we  do  not  think  of  a 
mosquito-netting.  The  son  of  Priam,  who 
154 


SCHOOL-MASTERING    THE    SPEECH 

gives  us  the  verb  hector  was  the  farthest  possible 
remove  from  a  bully.  Disparagement  does  not 
involve  the  idea  that  one  is  married  to  a  person 
of  inferior  condition.  We  do  not  associate  ale 
with  the  thought  of  a  bridal.  The  morning  hours 
are  not  the  hours  which  are  devoted  to  matinees. 
Similarly  a  levee  no  longer  has  any  connection 
with  a  reception  at  the  time  of  rising.  In  Eng- 
land it  is  regularly  in  the  afternoon ;  in  America 
it  can  be  at  any  time  of  the  day,  but  preferably 
in  the  evening.  A  candidate  is  never  likely  to 
suggest  to  any  one  the  idea  of  being  robed  in 
white.  An  uneducated  private  citizen  is  not 
necessarily  an  idiot,  nor  is  an  adventurer  a 
pirate,  nor  a  lewd  man  a  layman.  A  harbor  is 
not  the  place  for  an  encampment  of  an  army. 
A  pagan  to  our  thoughts  is  in  no  way  a  villager 
or  rustic.  Usher  has  with  us  but  little  of  the 
primitive  sense  of  door-keeper,  nor  does  hostler 
suggest  hotel-keeper,  nor  marshal  a  horse-at- 
tendant. According  to  its  derivation  noon  is 
three  o'clock.  Etymologically  considered,  all 
these  words  ought  to  mean  what  as  a  matter  of 
fact  they  do  not  mean.  The  ones  given  are 
a  few  examples  of  a  list  which  might  be  stretched 
to  an  almost  indefinite  length. 

Turn  now  from  words  to  grammatical  forms. 
We  use  riches  as  a  plural,  though  it  is  nothing  but 
155 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

the  old  English  singular  rickesse.  The  process 
which  brought  about  the  change  which  has  taken 
place  in  the  grammatical  character  of  this  word 
we  can  now  see  going  on  at  the  present  day  in 
the  case  of  another  word.  With  the  keener  sen- 
sitiveness which  has  come  to  exist  in  matters  of 
language,  the  goal  towards  which  the  latter  has 
long  been  tending  may  never  be  actually  reach- 
ed. Still,  when  something  is  said  of  a  man's 
stamina,  how  small  is  the  number  of  those  to 
whom  it  occurs  that  stamina  is  a  plural.  Such, 
however,  it  certainly  is.  Yet  to  use  it  as  the 
subject  of  a  plural  verb  would  jar  now  upon  the 
linguistic  sense  of  even  the  classically  educated. 
So  men  who  are  aware  of  its  origin  free  them- 
selves from  embarrassment  by  employing  it 
almost  invariably  in  the  objective  case.  With 
this  no  fault  can  be  found.  Some  who  are  ig- 
norant of  its  being  a  Latin  plural  occasionally 
use  it  as  the  subject  of  a  singular  verb.  If  the 
language  of  the  few  should  become  in  this 
particular  the  language  of  the  many,  that  of 
itself  would  not  suffice  to  make  the  practice  good 
usage.  But  if  it  should  be  so  employed  by  the 
best  writers,  the  status  of  the  word  would  be 
settled  decisively.  Stamina  would  then  become 
a  singular  just  as  riches  has  become  a  plural. 
But   every   now  and  then  some  unfortunate 

156 


SCHOOL-MASTERING    THE    SPEECH 

word  or  construction  is  selected  to  bear  the 
brunt  of  linguistic  attack  because  it  is  em- 
ployed in  a  way  which  its  etymology  does  not 
justify,  though  scores  of  other  examples  of  a 
precisely  similar  nature  are  passed  over  in 
silence.  Attempts  in  consequence  are  made  to 
compel  men  to  give  up  their  natural  speech  and 
adopt  in  its  place  some  prescribed  mode  of  ex- 
pression, which,  it  is  assumed,  must  be  par- 
ticularly correct  because  it  is  so  disagreeably 
stiff  and  formal.  Though  the  process  has  been 
called,  in  accordance  with  Professor  Whitney's 
phrase,  a  school-mastering  process,  it  is  a  process 
the  application  of  which  is  not  confined  to  school- 
masters. Perhaps  as  a  class  the  teaching  pro- 
fession is  less  inclined  to  employ  it  than  any 
other  body  of  educated  men.  There  is  a  touch 
of  this  particular  form  of  pedantry  in  no  small 
number  of  the  cultivated  who  set  out  with  in- 
sufficient equipment  to  deal  with  the  problems 
of  speech.  A  pedant  is  not  necessarily  a  peda- 
gogue, though  etymologically  he  has  no  busi- 
ness to  be  anything  else.  The  path  of  deriva- 
tion, as  the  examples  just  given  show,  is  beset  at 
every  turn  with  pitfalls.  Into  one  of  these  he 
who  starts  out  to  follow  it  blindly  is  sure  to 
tumble.  Consequently  the  good  sense  of  the 
immense  majority  of  the  users  of  speech  has 
157 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

taught  them  to  shun  this  dangerous  way;  at 
least,  if  it  is  not  their  good  sense,  it  has  been  a 
necessity  of  the  situation.  It  is  of  course  im- 
possible for  the  great  body  of  speakers  to  con- 
form the  meanings  of  the  words  they  employ  to 
those  of  their  originals  found  in  a  language  which 
they  do  not  understand.  Even  such  as  are 
not  ignorant  in  this  particular  respect  are  almost 
invariably  indifferent. 

That  this  state  of  feeling  is  at  times  produc- 
tive of  harm  there  can  be  no  question.  There 
are  variations  of  signification  based  upon  der- 
ivation which  add  to  the  resources  of  speech. 
It  is  always  a  misfortune  when  they  come  to  be 
disregarded.  Let  us  take  an  illustration  from 
the  confusion  widely  prevalent  in  the  case  of  the 
two  words  vocation  and  avocation.  These  have, 
as  etymology  implies,  different  meanings.  A 
vocation  is  strictly  a  man's  calling,  the  main 
occupation  of  his  life.  An  avocation  is  some- 
thing which  summons  him  away  temporarily 
from  its  pursuit,  whether  it  be  of  the  nature  of 
diversion  or  of  business.  To  confuse  the  two 
senses  is  therefore  a  loss  to  the  language.  So 
again  the  proper  use  of  allude  in  the  sense  of 
hinting  at  or  suggesting  a  person  or  thing  with- 
out direct  mention  carries  with  it  a  delicate  dis- 
tinction in  usage  which  it  is  most  desirable  to 
IS8 


SCHOOL-MASTERING    THE    SPEECH 

retain.  Yet  there  is  no  question  that  both 
avocation  in  the  sense  of  vocation  and  allude  with 
the  mention  of  person  or  thing,  have  been  em- 
ployed not  simply  by  ordinary  men,  but  by 
speakers  and  writers  of  high  cultivation,  and  in 
a  few  instances  of  high  authority.  So  long  as 
the  greatest  authors  do  not  present  a  united 
front  against  such  usage  the  proper  signification 
of  the  words  is  in  danger  of  being  lost.  To  that 
extent  the  language  is  made  the  poorer.  Were 
all  of  this  class  of  writers  to  fail  us  here,  we  would 
have  to  regret  the  impairment  of  the  speech 
thereby  produced.  None  the  less  should  we 
have  to  accept  it,  at  least  for  the  time  being. 

It  is  not,  however,  from  disregard  of  deriva- 
tion that  the  speech  is  in  any  serious  danger. 
Much  more  harmftil  is  the  deference  mistakenly 
paid  to  it.  From  this  results  not  unfrequently  a 
pedantic  and  even  painful  mode  of  expression  in 
opposition  to  the  best  usage,  and  that  too  with- 
out the  slightest  counterbalancing  advantage. 
A  remarkable  illustration  of  this  can  be  seen  in 
the  case  of  none  as  the  subject  of  a  plural  verb. 
When  and  where  the  outbreak  of  hostility  to  this 
usage  first  manifested  itself  it  may  not  be  easy 
to  determine.  Apparently  it  was  not  until  of 
late  that  any  one  ever  thought  seriously  of  ques- 
tioning the  propriety  of  the  construction.  But 
159 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

the  fancy  seems  suddenly  to  have  dawned  upon 
the  mind  of  some  student  of  speech  that  none 
was  a  contraction  of  no  one.  Strictly  it  is  a 
contraction  of  the  negative  particle  ne,  and  an, 
the  original  of  'one.'  In  Anglo-Saxon  the  com- 
pound nan  was  inflected  in  both  the  singular 
and  the  plural.  But  under  the  belief  that  none 
was  a  late  contraction  of  no  one,  the  processes 
of  logic  were  set  in  motion.  No  one  is  exclu- 
sively confined  in  its  construction  to  the  singu- 
lar; it  cannot  be  used  with  a  verb  in  the  plural. 
In  that  all  would  agree.  The  conclusion  was 
then  at  once  drawn  that  the  word  theoretically 
derived  from  it  must  be  exactly  in  the  same  situ- 
ation. It  was  therefore  highly  improper  to  use 
none  as  the  subject  of  a  plural  verb. 

It  is  needless  to  say  to  any  person  who  has 
made  himself  familiar  with  the  best  usage,  either 
written  or  spoken,  that  none  has  been  and  is 
employed  indifferently  as  a  singular  and  a 
plural;  if  anything,  more  frequently  in  the  latter 
number  than  in  the  former.  The  study  of  our 
best  writers  settles  that  point  decisively.  It  is 
in  the  power  of  any  one  to  decide  the  question 
for  himself;  and  it  will  make  little  difference 
what  is  the  work  he  takes  up.  At  Miletus,  Paul 
tells  his  followers  of  the  bonds  and  afflictions 
which  await  him  at  Jerusalem.  "But  none  of 
1 60 


SCHOOL-MASTERING    THE    SPEECH 

these  things  move  me,"  he  continues,  according 
to  the  authorized  version  which  adopts  here  the 
translation  of  the  passage  as  found  in  some  of 
the  earlier  sixteenth-century  versions.  **None 
deny  there  is  a  God,"  said  Bacon  in  his  essay  on 
Atheism,  "but  those  for  whom  it  maketh  that 
there  were  no  God."  "None  are  for  me," 
Shakespeare  puts  in  the  mouth  of  Richard  III., 
"that  look  into  me  with  considerate  eyes." 
"None  are  seen  to  do  it  but  the  people,"  wrote 
Milton  in  his  Tenure  of  Kings  and  Magistrates. 
It  would  be  easy  to  fill  page  after  page  with 
examples  of  the  use  of  none  as  the  subject  of  a 
plural  verb,  taken  from  the  best  writers  of  the 
language  of  every  period,  and  indeed  from 
writers  of  every  grade  of  distinction  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest.  As  a  single  illustration 
of  what  can  be  found  in  modern  usage,  in  the 
one  short  poem  of  Browning's,  entitled  Olive, 
the  word  appears  three  times  as  a  plural. 

There  is  even  more  to  be  said.  As  there  are 
cases  where  none  with  the  verb  in  the  singular 
is  the  only  proper  construction;  as  again  there 
are  cases  where  none  can  be  used  indifferently  as 
a  singular  or  a  plural — so  there  are  cases  where 
its  use  as  the  subject  of  a  plural  verb  is  the  only 
possible  as  well  as  proper  construction.  Fancy 
the  result  which  would  follow  the  employment 
i6i 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

of  goes  for  go  in  this  somewhat  celebrated  couplet 
of  Pope's: 

"  'Tis  with  our  judgments  as  our  watches,  none 
Go  just  alike,  yet  each  believes  his  own." 

Similar  examples  could  be  multiplied  almost  in- 
definitely. Yet  a  practice  which  is  etymologi- 
cally  correct,  which  is  sustained  by  the  good 
usage  of  both  the  past  and  the  present,  which  in 
many  instances  is  absolutely  essential  to  correct- 
ness of  expression,  has  been  held  up  to  censure 
because  it  is  assumed  not  to  conform  to  this 
crazy  canon  of  derivation.  There  is  no  harm 
in  a  man's  limiting  his  employment  of  none  to 
the  singular  in  his  own  individual  usage,  if  he 
derives  any  pleasure  from  this  particular  form 
of  linguistic  martyrdom.  But  why  should  he 
go  about  seeking  to  inflict  upon  others  the 
misery  which  owes  its  origin  to  his  own  igno- 
rance ? 


VI 

ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

THE  attack  upon  rione  as  a  plural,  with  the 
consideration  of  which  the  previous  essay 
ended,  is  but  one  of  numerous  instances  of  the 
attempts  that  are  made  to  model  correctness  of 
expression  upon  something  else  than  the  usage 
of  the  best  speakers  and  writers.  Artificial 
rules  are  set  up  to  which  we  are  told  we  must 
conform  in  order  to  employ  the  language  prop- 
erly. These  are  at  best  the  creations  of 
pedantry;  too  often  they  are  the  creations  of 
unintelligent  pedantry.  This  is  disposed  to 
carry  on  a  protracted  war  with  the  long-es- 
tablished idioms  of  the  language.  It  seeks  to 
substitute  for  what  usage  really  is  crude  con- 
ceptions of  what  it  ought  to  be.  Its  success 
would  mean  the  decay  or  death  of  grace  or  ease  of 
expression.  "Pedantry,"  said  an  eminent  prose 
writer,  "though  it  were  unconscious  pedantry, 
once  steadily  diffused  through  a  nation  as  to  the 
very  moulds  of  its  thinking  and  the  general 
163 


TH,E    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

tendencies  of  its  expression,  could  not  but 
stiffen  the  natural  graces  of  composition  and 
weave  fetters  about  the  free  movements  of 
human  thought." 

So  wrote  De  Quincey  in  his  essay  on  Style. 
In  these  words  he  indicated  the  only  serious 
peril  which  can  menace  a  tongue,  the  users  of 
which  hold  up  before  themselves  high  ideals 
of  moral  and  intellectual  excellence.  So  long  as 
such  continue  to  be  cherished,  no  fear  need  be 
felt  of  any  harmful  consequences  befalling  the 
language  from  so-called  corruptions  which  are 
always  on  the  point  of  ruining  it  beyond  re- 
demption, according  to  the  belief  of  those  who 
possess  little  familiarity  with  the  historic  de- 
velopment of  speech.  In  pedantic  usage,  how- 
ever, there  is  a  certain,  though  fortunately  but 
a  slight,  degree  of  danger.  Under  its  influence 
the  disposition  comes  to  prevail  to  set  up  arti- 
ficial modes  of  expression  as  the  only  correct 
ones;  to  look  with  disfavor  upon  what  is  idio- 
matic and  natural  when  contrasted  with  what  is 
formal  and  precise. 

In  every  community  where  the  subject  of 
usage  comes  up  for  discussion,  a  body  of  men 
can  be  found  who  are  not  content  with  perfect 
propriety.  They  are  determined  to  have  what 
may  be  called  pluperfect  propriety.  This  dis- 
164 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

position  takes  frequently  the  form  of  preference 
for  an  affected  precision  which  has  all  the  dis- 
agreeableness  of  pedantry  without  being  based 
upon  the  adequate  knowledge  which  serves  as  a 
palliation  of  pedantry  when  it  is  not  its  justi- 
fication. It  inclines  to  the  policy  of  restriction. 
In  the  case  of  words  and  phrases  it  picks  out 
one  of  many  meanings  and  insists  that  this  is 
the  only  one  that  can  be  used  properly.  In  so 
doing,  not  content  with  defying  common  usage, 
it  not  unfrequently  defies  common-sense.  There 
is,  for  instance,  a  glaring  illustration  of  this 
fact  contained  in  some  manuals  that  have  had 
a  wide  circulation.  We  are  told  that  it  is  quite 
wrong  to  say  at  length,  when  what  we  mean  is 
'at  last.'  The  phrase  should  be  employed 
only  when  it  refers  to  fulness  of  detail.  It  is 
pretty  hard  to  conceive  of  the  nature  of  the 
mental  operations  of  a  man  who  assumes  that 
length  has  nothing  to  do  with  time  but  only 
with  space;  that,  for  illustration,  it  would  be 
proper  to  say  **he  spoke  at  length,"  but  quite 
improper  to  say,  **  at  length  he  spoke."  But 
the  injunction  is  as  contrary  to  the  best  usage  as 
it  is  to  reason.  No  one  who  has  made  any 
study  of  the  practice  of  the  great  writers  in  this 
particular  can  have  failed  to  note  that  at 
length  is  employed  by  them  five  times  in  the 
165 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

sense  of  denoting  the  end  of  a  period,  where  it 
is  used  once  in  denoting  the  full  extent  of  any- 
thing. Either  usage  is  of  course  correct;  but 
the  former  is  far  more  common  than  the  latter. 
This  is  something  which  any  one  can  determine 
for  himself  by  examining  the  works  of  any 
eminent  author,  no  matter  who  he  be  or  what  is 
his  subject. 

But  instances  of  this  pedantic  hostility  to  good 
usage  are  not  confined  to  words  and  phrases.  It 
shows  itself  not  unfrequently  in  the  denunciation 
of  certain  grammatical  constructions.  It  insists 
that  some  particular  one  is  not  only  a  proper 
one,  but  that  it  is  the  only  proper  one.  It 
therefore  attacks  on  the  one  side  the  employ- 
ment of  long-established  idioms,  for  which  an 
equivalent  exists  which  can  be  made  to  take  its 
place.  This  is  not  unfrequently  done  under  the 
mistaken  impression  that  they  are  of  recent  in- 
troduction. On  the  other  side  it  manifests  an 
uneasy  hostility  to  any  later  modes  of  expression 
which  the  language  has  struck  out  or  is  striking 
out  for  itself.  One  of  this  number  will  be  con- 
sidered at  length  later  in  this  volume.  Here 
attention  will  be  confined  to  two  idioms  belong- 
ing to  the  former  class.  These,  however,  are 
glaring  instances  of  the  pedantic  stiffness  which 
would  sacrifice  ease  or  variety  of  expression  or 
i66 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

idiomatic  energy  to  the  fancied  requirements  of 
formal  grammar. 

The  first  of  these  two  concerns  itself  with  a 
very  common  idiom  in  our  tongue,  the  use  of 
the  present  tense  of  the  verb  for  the  future. 
One  particular  illustration  of  this  there  is  which 
comes  up  pretty  constantly  for  discussion.  A 
person  wishes  on  some  given  day,  say,  for  in- 
stance, Saturday,  to  designate  the  day  following. 
He  ordinarily  says,  'To-morrow  is  Sunday' — 
that  is,  he  says  so  if  he  uses  the  language  as  if  it 
belonged  to  him  and  not  as  if  he  belonged  to  it. 
If  he  chance  to  be  in  the  company  of  one  who 
is  in  the  latter  unhappy  situation,  he  is  not  un- 
likely to  be  interrupted  by  some  such  remark  as 
this,  "Pardon  me,  you  should  say,  'To-morrow 
will  be  Sunday.'" 

This  foregoing  is  a  specimen  of  the  sort  of 
examples  usually  adduced  by  scholars  as  an 
illustration  of  pedantic  usage  occasioned  by 
imperfect  linguistic  training.  Yet  in  spite  of 
its  commonness  it  does  not  strictly  belong  to  the 
class  of  cases  here  under  consideration.  It  is 
merely  one  of  many  instances  where  the  idea  of 
future  time  is  conveyed  not  by  the  verb  but  by 
some  other  word  or  phrase  in  the  sentence.  In 
the  example  just  given  it  is  found  in  the  subject 
to-morrow.  If  any  person  take  exception  to  the 
"  167 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

expression,  it  is  perfectly  legitimate  to  ask  him 
if  the  day  specified  be  not  Sunday,  what  day 
is  it  ?  Important  engagements  will  usually  com- 
pel him  to  betake  himself  elsewhere  before  he 
finds  time  to  answer.  In  all  cases  of  the  sort 
it  is  of  course  proper  enough  to  use  the  future 
tense.  Occasionally  it  may  be  necessary  to  do 
so,  either  for  the  sake  of  contrast,  or  of  em- 
phasis, or  even  of  securing  variety.  But  or- 
dinarily its  employment  adds  nothing  to  the 
clearness  or  force  of  what  is  sought  to  be  said. 
It  therefore  approaches  the  nature  of  an  ex- 
pletive. On  the  other  hand,  the  use  of  the 
present  tense  not  only  makes  the  idea  just  as 
distinct,  it  sometimes  renders  it  far  more  ef- 
fective. "Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow 
we  die,"  wrote  Paul,  arguing  against  those  who 
denied  immortality.  Undoubtedly,  *'we  shall 
die  "  would  have  expressed  exactly  what  the 
apostle  had  in  mind;  but  it  would  not  have 
given  his  words  the  vividness  and  energy  they 
now  have. 

But  there  are  plenty  of  instances  in  our  lit- 
erature where  the  present  tense  is  used  inde- 
pendently, sometimes  to  express  directly,  some- 
times to  imply  the  idea  of  future  time.  The 
subject  is  too  extensive  to  receive  here  little 
more  than  reference;  but  the  examples  of  the 
1 68 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

usage  are  frequently  striking.  When  Othello 
threatens  the  brawling  combatants  at  the  court 
of  guard  that  he  who  lifts  his  arm  in  further 
quarrel  shall  meet  with  immediate  and  condign 
punishment,  he  adds  to  the  effectiveness  of  his 
speech  by  employing  the  present  tense  and 
not  the  future.  "He  dies  upon  his  motion"  are 
his  words.  Extreme  instances  of  this  usage  oc- 
casionally occur.  A  verb  in  the  present  tense 
indicating  future  time  has  sometimes  been  op- 
posed in  the  same  sentence  to  another  verb  in 
the  present  tense  indicating  present  time.  Take 
a  short  extract  from  Milton's  ode  on  the  Morn- 
ing of  Christ's  Nativity.  Contrast  the  future 
sense  of  is  with  the  present  sense  of  begins  in 
the  following  lines: 

"And  then  at  last  our  bliss 
Full  and  perfect  is, 
But  now  begins." 

This  use  of  the  present  for  the  future,  per- 
haps known  in  all  languages  ever  spoken,  has, 
however,  a  more  than  ordinary  justification  for 
itself  in  the  class  of  languages  to  which  Eng- 
lish belongs.  In  these  there  were  originally  but 
two  tenses.  The  present,  therefore,  indicated 
not  only  what  then  was,  but  what  was  to  be. 
When  the  Teutonic  invaders  of  France  adopted 
169 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

the  language  of  the  conquered  country,  they  felt 
no  necessity  of  having  a  distinct  future.  They 
therefore  dispensed  with  that  tense  of  the  Latin. 
The  present  satisfied  all  their  requirements. 
When  later  they  came  to  appreciate  the  need  of 
the  precision  and  consequent  clearness  which  a 
special  form  for  the  future  imparts  to  speech,  es- 
pecially in  the  language  of  literature,  they  made 
up  one  from  a  combination  of  words  which 
primarily  denoted  necessity.  It  was  a  new  ap- 
plication of  an  old  use.  The  idea  of  necessity 
passed  into  that  of  futurity,  and  as  a  result  of 
this  transference  the  new  tense  came  into  being. 
So  in  the  case  of  English  it  took  several  hun- 
dred years  to  develop  the  future  fully.  "Six 
days  thou  workest;  the  seventh  day  thou 
restest,"  says  the  Anglo-Saxon  version  of 
the  Decalogue,  literally  translated.  The  verb- 
phrases,  consisting  of  will  and  shall  with  the 
infinitive,  had  indeed  made  their  appearance 
in  the  speech  when  it  was  committed  to  writing. 
But  so  far  from  having  then  attained  supremacy, 
they  secured  at  first  little  more  than  recognition. 
It  was  a  slow  process  that  established  them  in 
general  use.  The  encroachment  of  these  special 
forms  for  the  future  upon  the  domain  of  the 
present  must  have  brought  sorrow  to  the  lin- 
guistic conservatives  among  our  early  ancestors, 
170 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

so  far  as  such  persons  then  existed.  But  the 
protracted  grief  of  centuries  has  long  been  for- 
gotten, and  the  lesson  conveyed  by  it  is  un- 
heeded. There  are  those  of  us,  in  consequence, 
who  are  now  insisting  not  merely  upon  the  fur- 
ther extension  but  upon  the  exclusive  sway  of 
a  usage  which  some  of  their  forefathers  doubt- 
less deplored  as  a  corruption. 

The  gradual  development  of  the  future  has 
shown  itself  further  in  the  subtle  distinction 
which  came  at  last  to  prevail  in  the  use  of  shall 
and  will.  Readers  of  our  version  of  the  Script- 
ures and  of  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  do  not 
need  to  be  told  that  it  did  not  exist,  certainly 
as  a  binding  rule,  when  these  works  appeared. 
Even  now  between  the  use  of  the  past  tenses 
would  and  should  it  is  sometimes  not  easy  to 
discriminate;  but  no  one  at  the  present  day 
would  be  likely  to  make  any  such  employment 
of  the  former  in  the  sense  of  the  latter  as  is 
found  not  infrequently  in  Bacon.  In  his  es- 
say on  Masques  and  Triumphs,  for  illustration, 
he  observes  of  the  requirements  for  acting  in 
song  that  "the  voices  of  the  dialogue  would 
be  strong  and  manly."  Again,  in  his  essay  on 
Gardens,  in  giving  directions  about  the  proper 
setting -out  of  fruit  trees,  he  remarks  that 
**this  would  be  generally  observed  that  the 
171 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

borders  wherein  you  plant  your  fruit  trees  be 
fair  and  large  and  low,  and  not  steep."  Such 
passages,  which  could  easily  be  multiplied, 
show  how  remote  was  often  the  usage  of  the 
Elizabethan  period  from  that  which  is  preva- 
lent to-day.  But  though  the  present  distinction 
had  not  then  become  fully  established,  it  must 
have  been  in  process  of  establishment.  By 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  it  had 
imposed  itself  upon  the  cultivated  speech  and, 
consequently,  upon  the  literature  of  England. 
In  Scotland  and  Ireland  it  never  gained  any 
secure  foothold.  In  those  parts  of  the  United 
States  which  once  religiously  regarded  it,  the 
prevalence  it  formerly  held  has  now  largely 
disappeared.  The  pressure  of  emigration  has 
been  too  strong  for  it.  The.  Irish  do  not  bring 
it  with  them;  the  Germans  do  not  acquire  it. 
In  order  to  use  it  with  absolute  correctness,  it 
seems  almost  as  if]  the  proper  employment  of 
it  must  be  imbibed  with  the  mother's  milk. 
Even  then,  under  the  Teutonic  and  Hibernian 
influences  surrounding  early  years,  it  is  con- 
stantly subjected  to  assaults  which  tend  to 
weaken  what  would  naturally  become  the  in- 
stinctive feeling  as  to  what  is  right  or  wrong. 
A  child  who  during  the  most  impressionable 
period  of  life  is  likely  to  hear  daily  such  a 
172 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

sentence  as  this,  "  Will  I  go  to  the  door?"  can 
hardly  help  having  its  linguistic  sensitiveness  in 
this  matter  distinctly  impaired.  He  may  not 
when  he  reaches  manhood  find  it  difficult  to 
comprehend  that  shall  ought  to  have  been  em- 
ployed in  the  sentence  just  given,  but  he  will 
not  have  that  almost  unconscious  perception  of 
its  rightfulness  which  is  essential  to  the  pres- 
ervation of  pure  idiomatic  usage. 

There  is  little  question  that  in  certain  parts 
of  America — especially  where  the  foreign  emi- 
gration has  been  vast — the  distinction  in  the 
employment  of  these  two  auxiliaries  has  largely 
died  out,  and  in  all  parts  of  the  country  has  been 
more  or  less  aflEected.  Rules  can  afford  but 
a  partial  help  towards  mastering  its  intricacies, 
for  they  are  always  in  danger  of  being  mis- 
applied. An  incident  illustrating  this  possi- 
bility was  once  related  to  me  by  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Thacher,  of  Yale  University.  In  his 
early  life,  while  studying  in  Berlin,  he  became 
the  tutor  in  English  of  the  nephew  of  the  then 
reigning  King  of  Prussia.  One  day  his  pupil 
said  to  him,  "My  father  shall  go  to  the  army 
manoeuvres  next  Monday."  "You  mean,  he 
will  go,"  corrected  the  instructor.  "No,  no," 
replied  the  future  Emperor,  "  he  shall  go.  He 
has  got  to  go.  The  King  has  commanded  him." 
173 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

If  a  man  of  exceptional  cultivation  and  ability 
could  not  always  securely  apply  the  rules  he  had 
received,  we  can  fancy  the  sort  of  havoc  that 
would  be  made  in  the  use  of  them  by  one  of 
ordinary  attainments.  Furthermore ^  the  ad- 
vanced student  of  English  stands  in  danger  of 
having  his  principles  corrupted  by  the  example 
of  the  earlier  authors  with  whom  he  makes 
himself  familiar.  In  the  very  greatest  of  these, 
as  has  already  been  seen,  the  distinction  is  not 
found,  because  it  did  not  then  exist.  There  is 
a  curious  picture  presented  of  the  gradual  ex- 
tension of  knowledge  about  the  usage,  in  the 
comments  made  upon  a  line  of  Shakespeare's. 
In  the  Comedy  of  Errors,  Antipholus  of  Ephesus 
tells  Angelo  to  go  to  his  house  for  the  money 
due  him,  and  adds, "  Perchance  I  will  be  there 
as  soon  as  you."  ^  "/  will  instead  of  /  shall  is 
a  Scotticism,"  is  the  remark  of  the  antiquary 
Douce  upon  the  expression.  "And  an  Irishism 
too,"  added  Isaac  Reed.  The  implied  censures 
of  the  two  Englishmen  aroused  the  patriotic 
protest  of  the  Irishman  Malone.  "And  an  an- 
cient Anglicism,"  he  observed  further,  "as  ap- 
pears by  the  present  passages,  and  from  several 
of  our  old  writers."^ 

*  Act  iv.,  scene  i. 

'  Shakespeare's  Works,  vol.  iv.,  p.  21 7,Variorutnof  1821. 

174 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

To  return  to  the  subject  itself.     Of  all  these 
attempts  made  in  behalf  of  pedantry  to  restrict 
freedom  of  expression,  the  most  vociferous — it  is 
hard  to  refrain  from  calling  it  the  most  senseless 
— is  the  one  directed  against  the  construction 
in  which  the  passive  voice  is  followed  by  an 
object.     Certainly  there  is  none  which  involves 
completer  ignorance  of  the  best  usage  or  more 
absolute  defiance  of  the  authority  of  the  great 
writers  of  our  speech.     In  the  construction  it- 
self there  is  nothing  peculiar  to  English.     It  is 
found  in  Latin,  more  frequently  in  Greek.     No 
student  of  the  former  tongue  needs  to  be  told 
that  verbs  of  asking  and  teaching  in  the  active 
voice  govern  two  accusatives;  and  that  in  the 
passive  these  same  verbs  can  be  followed  also 
by  one  of  these  two  accusatives.     It  is  in  Eng- 
lish, however,  that  this  sort  of  construction  has 
undergone  a  development  so  full  that  it  has  come 
to  partake  almost  of  the  nature  of  a  special  idi- 
om.    In  the  case  of  no  small  number  of  verbs, 
a  noun  as  object  follows  the  tenses  of  the  pas- 
sive voice  or  the  passive  participle.     The  usage 
has  never  been  made  the  subject  of  exhaustive 
investigation,  especially  as  regards  the  early  pe- 
riods of  the  language.     But  about  its  later  his- 
tory and  its  increasing  frequency  in  later  times 
very  positive  statements  can  be  safely  made. 
175 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

While  so  common  now,  the  construction  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  known  to  our  tongue 
in  its  earliest  form.  No  example  of  it  occurs — 
I  speak  subject  to  correction — in  Anglo-Saxon. 
It  made  its  appearance,  however,  in  the  lan- 
guage about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century. 
During  the  three  or  four  centuries  following  it 
was  seemingly  but  little  used,  though  the  fact 
that  but  few  traces  of  it  have  been  found,  or  at 
least  have  been  recorded,  may  be  due  to  the 
further  fact  that  they  have  not  been  diligently 
sought  for.  It  is  enough  here  to  prove  its 
early  existence  by  citing  three  or  four  illustra- 
tive passages,  the  spelling  of  which  is  here 
modernized.  **I  found  Jesus  bound,  scourged, 
given  gall  to  drink,"  says  Richard  Rolle  de 
Hampole.  **The  merchant  was  paid  thirty 
pounds  fine,"  is  the  statement  made  in  the 
metrical  romance  of  Sir  Amadas.  '*Fie!  the 
tales  that  I  have  been  told,"  is  the  speech  of  one 
of  the  characters  in  the  Coventry  Mysteries. 
^"I  was  promised  venison,  against  my  feast," 
says,  in  1479,  o^^  o^  '^^^  writers  of  the  Paston 
Letters,  "of  my  lady  Har court  and  of  another 
person  too,  but  I  was  deceived  of  both;  but  my 
guests  held  them  pleased  with  such  meat  as 
they  had,  blessed  be  God." 

It  is  not  worth  while,  however,  to  linger  over 
176 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

the  occurrence  of  this  contruction  in  writers 
whose  names,  even  if  known,  would  carry  no 
weight.  The  examples  given  are  enough  to  show 
the  antiquity  of  the  usage ;  they  are  not  of  suf- 
ficient consequence  to  establish  its  authority. 
Let  us  pass  on  to  the  sixteenth  century.  By  the 
end  of  it  the  idiom  was  flourishing  in  full  vigor. 
From  that  day  to  the  present  its  employment 
has  not  only  been  frequent,  it  has  become 
increasingly  frequent  with  the  progress  of  time. 
Still,  from  the  very  nature  of  things,  the  con- 
struction is  limited  to  a  comparatively  small  class 
of  verbs.  In  one  sense,  therefore,  it  can  never 
be  exceedingly  common.  It  may  be  that  it  was 
for  this  reason  that  for  a  long  time  it  seems 
to  have  escaped  the  attention  of  grammarians. 
Mention  has  already  been  made  of  this  fact  that 
it  was  not  until  about  the  middle  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  that  men  began  to  be  linguisti- 
cally self-conscious  on  any  large  scale.  Then 
it  was  that  the  vehicle  of  the  thought  came  to 
attract  attention  as  much  as  the  thought  that 
was  to  be  conveyed.  It  was  then  that  many 
began  to  feel  resting  upon  them  the  burden  of 
preserving  the  speech  in  its  so-called  purity. 
It  was  accordingly  inevitable  that  a  construc- 
tion of  this  sort  would  arrest  their  attention. 
It  was  opposed  to  all  their  preconceived  ideas 
177 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

of  grammatical  propriety.  It  was  what  they 
called  anomalous. 

Still,  it  unquestionably  had  abundant  authority 
in  its  favor  in  the  books  men  daily  read  and  in 
the  speech  of  those  they  met.  The  attitude  of 
grammarians  towards  it  therefore  varied  widely. 
Many  continued  to  ignore  it,  either  because  they 
did  not  observe  it  or  because  they  did  not  know 
what  to  say  about  it.  A  few  accepted  it  with 
apparent  approval.  Most,  however,  looked  at 
it  askance,  even  when  they  refrained  from  con- 
demning it.  The  more  intelligent  of  this  last- 
named  class,  daunted  by  the  frequency  with 
which  the  construction  was  found  in  the  best 
writers,  submitted  sometimes  meekly,  some- 
times grumblingly,  to  the  condonement  of  this 
grammatical  offence.  That  there  were  authors 
so  linguistically  depraved  as  to  employ  the  con- 
struction was,  indeed,  something  to  be  deplored. 
But  these  were  so  many  and  so  great  that  the 
censors  of  speech,  while  they  had  the  desire, 
did  not  have  the  courage  to  condemn.  But  no 
small  number  of  grammarians  stood  up  stoutly 
against  the  usage.  They  took  the  lofty  ground 
that  grammatical  purity,  or  what  they  deemed 
grammatical  purity,  must  be  preserved,  no 
matter  how  much  expression  suffered. 

Two  or  three  representatives  of  these  classes 

178 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

may  be  cited  to  illustrate  the  views  just  de- 
scribed. Noah  Webster,  in  his  Philosophical 
Grammar,  mentioned  the  usage.  One  of  the 
examples  he  quoted  was  taken  from  Black- 
stone's  Commentaries,  "The  bishops  and  abbots 
were  allowed  seats  in  the  House  of  Lords,"  said 
the  great  jurist.  Webster  observed  that  the 
construction  ought  to  be,  "Seats  in  the  House 
of  Lords  were  allowed  to  the  bishops  and  ab- 
bots." But  he  clearly  took  a  despairing  view 
of  the  possibility  of  effecting  any  reformation. 
The  comment  he  made  upon  the  examples  he 
cited  of  the  practice  reveals  his  state  of  mind. 
"The  idiom,"  he  wrote,  "is  outrageously  anom- 
alous, but  perhaps  incorrigible." 

Later  Lindley  Murray  considered  the  usage. 
He  borrowed  Webster's  examples  and  re-echoed 
his  sentiments.  But  the  construction  was  itself 
too  much  for  the  grammarian.  It  requires, 
indeed,  painful  and  protracted  vigilance  on  the 
part  of  the  most  scrupulous  pedantry  to  avoid 
falling  inadvertently  into  the  use  of  an  idiom 
so  common,  so  convenient,  and  supported  by 
authority  so  abundant  and  so  great.  Murray, 
in  consequence,  was  apt  to  resort  unconsciously 
to  a  practice  which  in  theory  he  condemned. 
The  lapses  he  made  from  linguistic  virtue 
brought  infinite  satisfaction  to  a  grammarian 
179 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

who  flourished  in  this  country  about  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  This  man  was 
Goold  Brown.  He  published  in  1848  a  bulky 
volume  entitled  the  Grammar  of  English  Gram- 
mars. It  is  not  of  so  much  value  for  what  it 
directly  teaches  as  for  the  estimate  it  indirectly 
leads  us  to  set  upon  works  of  this  nature.  It 
abounded  in  examples  of  errors  or  assumed 
errors  in  the  use  of  speech.  They  were  gathered 
in  the  large  majority  of  instances  not  from  the 
classic  writers  of  the  language,  but  from  the 
works  of  grammarians.  These  persons,  Brown 
assured  us,  were  misleading  the  schools.  It 
was  his  delight  to  point  out  and  to  exemplify 
the  various  blunders  they  committed  and  the 
false  doctrines  they  inculcated.  Lindley  Mur- 
ray was  still  a  name  to  conjure  by.  Towards 
him  he,  for  that  reason  apparently,  exhibited 
special  rancor.  There  is  scarcely  one  of  his  col- 
lections of  passages  containing  real  or  assumed 
errors  of  speech  in  which  this  grammatical 
hero  of  former  generations  does  not  figure  as  a 
conspicuous  offender  against  some  principle  of 
grammar. 

Brown  himself  never  doubted  in  the  slightest 
his  own  knowledge  both  of  what  was  and  what 
was  not  correct  English.     A  passive  verb  follow- 
ed by  an  object  was  a  construction  which  stirred 
180 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

his  soul  to  the  depths.  He  was  not  in  the  least 
disposed  to  follow  the  pusillanimous  course  of 
those  grammarians  who  were  inclined  to  put 
up  with  it  as  a  necessary  concession  to  man's 
grammatical  hardness  of  heart.  Not  for  an 
instant  would  he  tamper  with  the  unclean  thing. 
He  took  Webster  to  task  for  his  faint-hearted- 
ness.  He  quoted  his  despondent  remark  al- 
ready given  as  having  been  written  "with  too 
little  faith  in  the  corrective  power  of  grammar" 
— ^by  which  he  manifestly  understood  his  own 
grammar.  The  betrayal  of  his  principles  which 
Lindley  Murray  had  disclosed  in  his  practice 
natiirally  called  for  severe  comment .  '  *  We  too , '  * 
said  that  writer,  "must  be  allowed  the  privilege 
of  forming  our  own  laws."  In  this  sentence, 
which  Brown  cited  as  a  specimen  of  false  syntax, 
his  predecessor  had  uttered  a  great  truth  about 
his  own  language  without  being  aware  of  the 
extent  of  its  application. 

These  fulminations  against  the  idiom  have 
had  as  little  weight  with  the  great  authors  of 
the  present  as  they  would  have  had  with  the 
great  authors  of  the  past  had  the  latter  been 
called  upon  to  encounter  them.  The  antiquity 
of  the  construction  has  been  shown  by  examples. 
It  is  now  worth  while  to  show  its  universality. 
Here,  accordingly,  will  be  given  a  few  examples 
i8i 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

of  the  usage  taken  from  the  great  authors  of  our 
literature  from  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century 
to  the  present  day.  The  mass  of  illustrations 
that  can  be  given  is  mighty.  Space,  however, 
can  be  afforded  to  only  a  few,  but  these  so  far 
as  possible  will  be  made  representative  of  every 
period  and  of  various  classes  of  writers.  It  may 
be  said  of  this  idiom  that  it  occurs  most  fre- 
quently with  verbs  having  the  general  idea 
of  grant,  permission,  and  refusal,  though  it  is 
far  from  being  confined  to  them.  Still,  from 
these  classes,  the  examples  will  be  in  the  main 
taken.  Frequent  illustrations  will  be  given 
of  the  use  of  particular  words  which  have  been 
made  the  subject  of  special  attack.  To  show 
the  continuous  use  of  the  idiom,  the  earlier 
citations  are  printed  in  the  order  of  the  time  of 
publication  of  the  works  in  which  they  occur. 

"  It's  late  in  death  of  daunger  to  advize, 

Or  love  forbid  him  that  is  life  denayed  [i.e.,  denied]." 
Spenser,  The  Faerie  Queene,  bk.  iv.,  canto  12,  stanza  28. 

"We  are  denied  access  unto  his  person." 
Shakespeare,  2d  Henry  IV,  act  iv.  scene  i. 

*'  So  shall  nature  be  cherished  and  yet  taught  masteries. " 
Bacon,  Essay  on  Regiment  of  Health, 

*'  If  a  man  be  asked  a  question,  to  answer." 
Ben  Jonson,  Discoveries,  Parasiti  ad  Mensam. 
182 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

"  None  shall  be 
Denied  their  lawful  wishes." 

Fletcher,  Sea  Voyage,  act  v.,  scene  4. 

"Such  favor  I  unworthy  am  vouchsafed." 

Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  bk.  xii.,  line  622. 

"  The  best  thing  I  have  heard  of  Christianity  is  that 
we  women  are  allowed  the  privilege  of  human  souls." 

Dryden,  Don  Sebastian. 

"  It  cannot  well  be  allowed  the  honor  of  a  fourth." 

Swift,  Tale  of  a  Tub. 

"  I  remember  an  honest  gentleman  in  my  neighbor- 
hood who  was  served  such  a  trick." 

Addison,  Spectator. 

"  I  was  denied  my  second  request." 

Steele,  The  Lover,  No.   i, 

"  I  am  uneasy  to  be  so  long  denied  the  satisfaction 
of  it." 

Pope  to  Jervas,  December  12,  17 18. 

"  I  heard  the  other  day  that  I  was  writing  a  play  and 
was  told  the  name  of  it." 

Gray,  Letter  to  Walpole,  1747. 

"  Love  .  .  .  when  it  is  denied  a  vent  in  one  part,  it 
will  certainly  break  out  in  another." 

Fielding,  Tom  Jones,  bk.  ii.,  chap.  viii. 

*'  I  will  not  be  denied  the  grant  of  my  present  request." 
Richardson,  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  vol.  iv.,  p.  28  (ed. 
of  1754). 
xa  183 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

"  He  was  refused  admittance." 

Smollett,  Humphrey    Clinker,  vol.  vii.,  p.  85   (ed.  of 

1872). 

"  He  was  forbidden  access  to  the  sacrifices  ...  he  was 
refused  the  protection  of  the  law." 

Hume,  History  of  England,  vol.  i.,  chap,  i, 

"  They  were  refused  the  common  right  of  being  heard 
by  their  council  against  a  bill  of  pains  and  penalties." 
Gibbon,  Autobiography,  p.  296  (ed.  of  1896.) 

"An  offer  of  freedom  from  England  would  come 
rather  oddly,  shipped  to  them  in  an  African  vessel,  which 
is  refused  an  entry  into  the  ports  of  Virginia  or  Carolina, 
with  a  cargo  of  three  hundred  Angola  negroes." 

Burke,  Speech  on  Conciliation  with  America. 

"  I  knew  by  their  looks  upon  their  returning  they 
had  been  promised  something  great." 

Goldsmith,  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  chap.  x. 

"  In  the  library  I  was  shewn  some  curiosities." 
Dr.  Johnson,  Joiu-ney  to  the  Western  Islands. 

"In  my  account,  denied 
That  sensibility  of  pain  with  which 
Refinement  is  endured." 

Cowper,  Task. 

"  Those  who  ne'er  deigned  their  Bible  to  peruse, 
Would  think  it  hard  to  be  denied  their  news." 
Crabbe,  The  Newspaper. 

"  He  may  be  spared  any  unpleasant  feeling  of  dis- 
appointment." 

Wordsworth,  Preface  to  Lyrical  Ballads. 
184 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

•'  He  had  been  refused  a  passport  through  the  Nea- 
politan countries." 

Byron,  Letter  to  Bowring,  May  12,   1823. 

"  An    idle    tale    ciirrent  among  themselves   that  a 
lanzhnecht   was   refused    admittance   into    heaven   on 
account  of  his  vices,  and  into  hell  on  the  score  of  his 
tumultuous,  mutinous,  and  insubordinate  disposition." 
Scott,  Quentin  Durward. 

**  I  was  given  good  principles,  but  left  to  follow  them 
in  pride  and  conceit." 

Jane  Austen,  Pride  and  Prejudice,  chap.  xlv. 

"  He  was  offered  fifty  guineas  for  the  house  in  which 
we  are  to  live." 

Coleridge,  in  Southey's   Life  and  Correspondence,  vol. 
ii.,  p.   148. 

"  Evils  of  every  kind,  physical,  moral,  and  political, 
are  allowed  their  free  range." 
Southey,  Colloquies  on  Society,  vol.  i.,  p.  56  (2d  ed.) . 

"I  was  also  shown  the  caparisons  of  velvet." 

Irving,  Alhambra. 

"  The  incorruptible  .  .  .  could  not  be  refused  a  week 
of  delay." 

Carlyle,  French  Revolution,  vol.  iii.,  p.  5. 

"  They  were  offered  their  lives  if  they  would  consent 
to  abjure  the  cause  of  the  insurgent  Covenanters." 
Macaulay,  History  of  England. 

"  If  you  were  shown  a  great  heap  of  dolls.  ...  If  you 
were  shown  a  flock  of  birds." 

Dickens,  Tale  of  Two  Cities,  bk.  ii.,  chap.  xv. 

i8s 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

"  She  was  denied  admission  to  Miss  Crawley's  apart- 
ments." 

Thackeray,  Vanity  Fair,  chap.  xiv. 

"If  your  own  soul  has  been  spared  perplexity." 
George  Eliot,  Romola,  chap.  lix. 

"I  would  gladly  have  been  spared  the  sight." 
Hawthorne,  Scarlet  Letter,  chap.  x. 

*'  Being  through  his  cowardice  allowed 
Her  station." 

Tennyson,  Idylls  of  the  King,  Guinevere. 

"I  was  shown  the  Green  River  yesterday." 
Matthew  Arnold,  Letters,  vol.  ii,,  p.  403. 

"  I  was  given  a  bit  of  Child e  Harold  instead." 
Ruskin,  Proeterita,  vol.  i.,  p.  31. 

"  Mr,  Ferrars  was  offered  a  second-class  West  Indian 
government." 

Disraeli,  Endymion,  chap,  xviii. 

"  Hear  me  denied  my  right 
By  such  a  knave!" 

Browning,  Return  of  the  Druses,  act  i. 

"Gratian  was  refused  entrance." 

Froude,  Saint  Teresa. 

"Was  I  not  once  promised  a  visit?" 
Emerson  to  Carlyle,  Correspondence,  vol.  ii.,  p.  329. 

"He  was  given  a  lodge  to  keep." 
Stevenson,  Treasure  Island,  pt.  vi.,  chap.  iii. 

zS6 


i 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

Many  authors  of  as  high  a  grade  as  several 
included  in  the  foregoing  list,  are  not  represented 
in  it,  but  few  authors  of  the  very  first  class  have 
been  omitted.  If  their  concurrence  sanctions 
usage,  here  is  ample  evidence  of  its  universality. 
For  scores  of  pages  cotild  be  filled  with  further 
illustrations  of  this  idiom,  drawn  not  merely 
from  those  already  cited,  but  from  writers  of 
every  kind  and  grade  of  achievement  during 
every  period  of  modem  English  literatiu-e.  No 
construction  is  more  firmly  established  in  our 
language  than  this.  It  is  on  the  whole  com- 
moner in  prose  than  in  poetry.  It  is  more  com- 
mon in  some  authors  than  in  others.  It  is  fre- 
quent, for  instance,  in  Shakespeare  and  Milton: 
it  is  rare  in  Spenser  and  Bacon.  It  is  frequent 
in  Browning:  it  is  rare  in  Tennyson.  But  it  is 
found  in  all,  as  well  as  in  all  sorts  of  productions. 
Furthermore,  its  employment  seems  to  have 
been  on  the  increase  since  the  sixteenth  century. 
It  has  assuredly  never  been  more  used  than  in 
the  middle  and  latter  half  of  the  century  which 
has  just  closed.  But  in  every  period,  in  spite 
of  the  comparatively  small  number  of  verbs 
which  permit  the  construction,  there  are  few 
pieces  of  any  length  which  do  not  contain  one 
or  more  examples  of  it.  In  Addison's  Travels 
in  Italy,  the  one  passive  verb   to  be  shown  is 

187 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

followed  five  times  by  an  accusative.  Or  take  a 
more  modern  instance.  In  his  essay  on  Warren 
Hastings,  Macaulay  gives  an  account  of  the  ap- 
plication of  the  two  attendants  of  the  princesses 
of  Oude  for  the  privilege  of  taking  exercise  in 
the  garden  of  the  prison  in  which  they  were 
confined.  He  tells  us  that  the  officer  in  charge 
"stated  that  if  they  were  allowed  this  indul- 
gence there  was  not  the  smallest  chance  of  their 
escaping."  Further,  in  this  same  production, 
in  speaking  of  the  great  harangue  of  Sheridan 
on  the  spoliation  of  the  Begums,  he  informs  us 
that  the  orator  "was  offered  a  thousand  pounds 
for  the  copyright  of  the  speech,  if  he  would 
himself  correct  it  for  the  press."  It  is  needless, 
however,  to  multiply  examples.  These  every  one, 
if  he  wishes,  can  easily  find  for  himself  in  any 
writer  of  the  first  rank.  But  he  who  is  not  con- 
vinced of  the  correctness  of  the  usage  by  the 
authorities  already  cited  is  gifted  with  that  sort 
of  brain  which  can  be  relied  upon  to  reject  any 
evidence  which  comes  in  conflict  with  its  preju- 
dices and  preconceived  opinions. 

The  antiquity  and  universality  of  the  idiom 
is  one  thing;  its  origin  is  quite  another.  In 
the  comparatively  little  as  yet  known  of  the 
historic  development  of  English  syntax  he  is 
treading  upon  insecure  ground  who  now  at- 
i88 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

tempts  to  set  forth  the  precise  cause  which  led 
to  the  introduction  into  our  speech  of  an  idiom 
which  did  not  belong  to  it  originally.  But 
three  agencies  in  particular  have  contributed 
to  its  prevalence.  There  is  first  the  combina- 
tion, so  common  in  English,  of  a  verb  with  the 
substantive  it  governs  gaining  thereby  a  special 
meaning  allied  to  the  substantive.  This  com- 
poimd  phrase  is  usually,  though  not  invariably, 
followed  by  a  preposition.  Thus  we  can  say 
indifferently  to  notice,  or  to  take  notice  of.  No 
one  would  feel  any  hesitation  about  using  the 
construction  **he  was  noticed."  But  by  so 
doing  he  is  led  almost  inevitably  to  employ  the 
equivalent  passive  construction  *'  he  was  taken 
notice  of."  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  as  regards 
the  origin  of  the  idiom  under  discussion,  that 
the  first  example  of  it  which  has  been  adduced 
— ^the  first,  at  least,  of  which  I  am  aware — is 
an  expression  belonging  to  this  class.  So  far 
back  as  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century 
"they  are  let  blood"  occurs  in  Layamon. 

Another  agency  which  has  contributed  to  the 
prevalence  of  the  usage  is  the  not  uncommon 
fact  that  a  verb  followed  by  a  preposition  is 
often  equivalent  in  sense  to  a  simple  verb.  To 
present  with,  for  illustration,  conveys  a  meaning 
not  essentially  different  from  to  give.  Such  a 
189 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

sentence  as  "  The  boy  was  presented  with  a 
book  ' '  would  bring  no  protest  from  the  sternest 
of  grammarians.  But  so  long  as  such  expres- 
sions are  in  use,  it  is  asking  too  much  of  human 
nature  to  expect  that  the  equivalent  given  will 
not  be  substituted  for  presented  with.  In  that 
case  the  passive  followed  by  an  object  has  de- 
scended upon  us  in  all  its  assumed  horribleness. 
But  the  main  agency  in  bringing  about  the 
wide  extension  of  the  usage  is  something  quite 
different.  The  construction  in  question  be- 
longs primarily  to  a  verb  which  in  the  active 
voice  governs  two  accusatives,  the  one  of  a 
person,  the  other  of  a  thing.  But  it  so  happens 
that  early  in  the  history  of  our  speech  the  forms 
of  the  dative  and  the  accusative,  originally 
separate,  were  melted  into  the  one  we  call  the 
objective.  When  the  distinction  between  the 
two  appealed  no  longer  to  the  eye  or  the  ear,  it 
was  sure,  in  the  case  of  most  men,  not  to  appeal 
long  to  the  mind.  In  such  a  sentence  as 
**  They  paid  the  man  twenty  pounds,"  the  verb 
seemed  to  the  popular  apprehension  to  govern 
two  accusatives.  Consequently,  when  the  pas- 
sive construction  was  employed,  the  original 
dative  of  the  person,  conceived  of  as  an  accusa- 
tive, became  the  subject  of  the  verb,  while  the 
actual  accusative  remained  as  its  object.  Ac- 
190 


ARTIFICIAL    USAGE 

cordingly, the  sentence  assumed  the  form,  "The 
man  was  paid  twenty  pounds."  This  particular 
kind  of  usage  did  more  than  establish  itself;  it 
gained  strength  and  expansion  in  various  ways, 
the  details  of  which  would  require  for  their  dis- 
cussion a  special  treatise. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  origin  of  the  idiom, 
there  is  no  more  question  as  to  its  legitimacy 
than  there  is  as  to  its  usefulness.  No  one,  to 
be  sure,  is  compelled  to  employ  it.  With  the 
exercise  of  sedulous  care  and  at  the  expense  of 
much  tribulation  of  spirit  it  can  always  be 
avoided.  Every  man  has  the  fullest  liberty  to 
indulge  in  any  sort  of  linguistic  asceticism  under 
the  illusion  that  he  is  setting  an  example  of 
linguistic  holiness.  It  is  only  when  he  insists 
that  others  cannot  be  pure  without  accepting 
his  notions  of  purity  that  he  becomes  objec- 
tionable. It  is  not  particularly  creditable  to 
the  English-speaking  race  that  at  this  late  day 
any  necessity  should  exist  of  defending  a  con- 
struction like  the  one  under  consideration. 
The  denouncer  of  it  proclaims  by  that  very  fact 
his  lack  of  familiarity  with  the  best  usage. 
Here  is  an  idiom  which  has  been  employed  for 
more  than  six  centuries.  For  the  last  three  of 
these  it  has  been  in  use  by  every  writer  whom 
we  regard  as  an  authority.     It  is,  furthermore, 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

an  idiom  which  adds  facility  and  variety  to  ex- 
pression, and  thereby  increases  the  resources 
of  the  language.  No  more  preposterous  prop- 
osition was  ever  advanced  in  the  history  of 
any  cultivated  tongue  than  that  all  men  should 
deliberately  abandon  a  construction  now  em- 
bodied in  the  very  framework  of  the  speech, 
because  it  offends  the  linguistic  sensibilities  of 
some  men  who  have  studied  grammar  without 
studying  the  literature  upon  which  any  grammar 
entitled  to  consideration  is  based. 

It  is  said  that  there  are  newspaper  offices  in 
this  country  where  this  construction  is  strictly 
tabooed.  Were  this  true  of  all,  as  it  may  be 
of  some,  there  would  be  a  certain  justification 
for  a  common  but  essentially  absurd  charge  that 
the  press  is  doing  all  it  can  to  ruin  the  language. 
No  anxiety,  however,  about  the  success  of  such 
an  undertaking  could  be  entertained  by  any 
one  who  has  made  himself  familiar  with  the 
history  and  development  of  speech.  The  futil- 
ity of  the  attempt  would  be  more  conspicuous 
even  than  its  fatuity.  Yet  efforts  directed  to 
the  accomplishment  of  this  impossible  task  will 
without  doubt  always  continue  to  be  put  forth 
by  a  certain  class  of  verbal  critics  who  can  never 
free  themselves  from  the  impression  that  man 
was  made  for  language  and  not  language  for  man. 
19a 


VII 

ON   THE    HOSTILITY   TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

NOTHING  is  more  striking  in  the  history 
of  language  than  the  hostility  which  mani- 
fests itself  at  particular  periods  to  particular 
words  or  phrases.  By  this  is  not  meant  the 
aversion  entertained  by  individuals  to  certain 
locutions.  This  is  a  state  of  mind  which 
characterizes  us  all,  and  rarely,  if  ever,  does  it 
aifect  seriously  the  fortune  of  the  expression 
disliked.  The  reference  here  is  to  that  or- 
ganized onslaught  made  by  large  numbers  upon 
some  unfortunate  word  or  construction  with  the 
intent  of  driving  it  entirely  out  of  use. 

This  hostility  may  spring  from  several  causes. 
Three  there  are,  however,  which  are  conspicu- 
ous in  bringing  about  the  condition  of  things 
denoted.  One  of  these  is  that  the  new  word  or 
construction  is  entirely  unnecessary.  All  it  con- 
veys is  already  sufficiently  expressed  by  some 
other  word  which  has  been  long  in  use.  This  is 
not  a  consideration,  however,  which  prevents  the 
193 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

introduction  of  many  new  terms  which  make 
their  way  into  the  speech  unheeded  and  there- 
fore unattacked.  But  if  one  of  these  pro- 
posed locutions  chance  from  any  cause  to  attract 
public  attention  and  special  censure,  it  is  obliged 
to  go  through  a  fiery  ordeal  before  it  is  received, 
if  even  it  is  received  at  all.  Take  the  case 
of  donate.  It  apparently  came  into  existence 
about  half  a  century  ago.  It  is  one  of  the  few 
words  of  the  many,  which  are  so  called,  that 
seem  justly  entitled  to  be  enrolled  among 
Americanisms.  It  has  been  pretty  regularly 
shunned  by  the  highly  respectable.  When  em- 
ployed, it  sometimes  appears  enclosed  in  quota- 
tion marks  in  order  to  indicate  to  the  reader 
that  the  writer,  though  he  has  resorted  to  it,  can- 
not strictly  give  it  his  august  approval.  Now 
whether  the  word  is  to  be  deemed  really  un- 
necessary or  not,  and  accordingly  retained  or 
rejected,  is  a  matter  to  be  decided  by  the  col- 
lective body  of  the  users  of  speech,  not  by  in- 
dividuals among  them  however  eminent  their 
position.  It  is  further  to  be  said  that  the  word 
is  as  regularly  formed  as  is  fascinate,  venerate, 
and  a  host  of  others  with  the  same  ending. 
It  had  been  preceded,  too,  by  the  corresponding 
substantive  donation,  which  goes  back  to  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  if  one  could  be  used 
194 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN   WORDS 

without  objection  during  this  long  period  there 
seems  little  reason  for  excluding  the  other. 
Nor  as  regards  its  ultimate  acceptance  is  it 
even  now  in  any  worse  situation  than  have  been 
several  of  its  predecessors  with  the  same 
termination.  Take,  for  illustration,  narrate. 
This  verb,  as  we  have  already  had  occasion  to 
note,  was  once  denounced  as  a  Scotticism. 
It  therefore  lacked  that  perfect  purity  which 
could  belong  only  to  words  whose  birth  took 
place  south  of  the  Tweed.  The  Quarterly 
Review,  which  in  its  early  years  was  always  in 
a  state  of  disquietude  about  the  English  lan- 
guage, unbent  on  one  occasion  sufficiently  from 
its  severe  classicality  as  to  express  a  liking 
for  the  Scotticisms  with  which  a  work  it  was 
reviewing  abounded.  But  at  the  w^ord  just 
mentioned  it  drew  the  line.  The  style  was  de- 
scribed as  being  "free  from  all  modem  affecta- 
tion, except  the  abominable  word  'narrate/ 
which  must  absolutely  be  proscribed  in  all  good 
writing."^  But  even  Quarterly  Reviews  are 
frail.  Only  a  few  years  passed  and  the  objec- 
tionable word  was  rioting  in  its  own  columns. 

Another  cause  of  this  hostility  is  that  the  given 
locution  offends  the  etymological  sense  of  par- 

*  Review  of  McCrie's  Life  of  John  Knox,  in  Quarterly 
Review,  July,  1813,  vol.  ix.,  p.  433. 

195 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

ticular  persons  or  of  all  persons  who  care  about 
etymology  at  all.  The  word  may  be  or  may  seem 
to  be  unsatisfactorily  formed;  the  phrase  may 
be  or  may  seem  to  be  ungrammatical.  Hence 
those  averse  to  its  use  feel  that  in  displaying 
their  dislike  they  deserve  well  of  their  fellow- 
men  for  standing  up  for  the  purity  of  English 
undefiled.  The  prejudice  they  entertain  some- 
times, indeed,  owes  its  origin  to  their  ignorance ; 
but  that  fact  renders  it  none  the  less  potent  or 
effective.  We  have  constant  exemplification 
of  the  state  of  feeling  here  indicated  whether 
there  be  justification  for  it  or  not.  Take  the 
case  of  reliable.  About  the  propriety  of  this 
word  a  contest  has  been  raging  for  a  full  hun- 
dred years  and  seems  now  no  nearer  a  settle- 
ment than  when  it  began.  This  particular  ad- 
jective can  be  found  at  a  much  earlier  period, 
but  it  was  first  introduced  to  cultivated  society 
by  Coleridge  about  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Though  he  did  not  originate 
the  word,  it  was  his  employment  of  it  and  the 
criticism  he  received  for  employing  it  that  first 
fixed  upon  it  public  attention.  De  Quincey 
added  to  the  storm  which  was  raised  by  defi- 
nitely criticising  it  as  irregularly  formed.  In 
his  essay  upon  Style  he  spoke  of  Alcibiades  as 
being  "too  imsteady  and  (according  to  Mr. 
196 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

Coleridge's  coinage)  'unreliable,'  or  perhaps  in 
more  correct  English,  too  ' tmrelyuponabley  At 
any  rate,  from  that  day  to  this  the  discussion  of 
the  propriety  of  the  word  has  been  constant. 
Locker-Lampson  tells  us  that  Dean  Stanley  com- 
plained that  much  as  he  had  associated  with 
Gladstone,  he  had  never  influenced  him  in  any- 
thing. *'Yes,"  he  said,  recollecting  himself,  **I 
influenced  him  in  one  matter.  I  told  him  he 
ought  never  to  use  the  word  reliable,  and  I  gave 
him  my  reasons.  Some  time  afterwards  I  met 
Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  street,  and  he  said  as 
we  parted,  *I  have  never  used  that  wretched 
word  reliable  since  you  spoke  to  me  about  it.' "  * 
There  is  hardly  need  of  adding  that  America  has 
usually  had  to  bear  the  burden  of  introducing 
it  into  the  speech.  That  is  one  of  the  functions 
which  in  all  such  cases  this  country  discharges. 
Yet  in  this  as  in  the  instance  of  numerous  other 
words  men  are  inconsistent.  Those  who  with- 
out hesitation  will  say  available  and  indispens- 
able and  laughable,  will  refuse  to  sanction  by 
their  use  the  not  essentially  dissimilar  form 
reliable. 

Under  this  head  of  words  tainted  by  ety- 
mological defilement  are  included  certain  terms 

*  Locker-Lampson,  My  Confidences,  p.  348. 
197 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

which  are  technically  called  back-formations. 
To  many  these  are  peculiarly  objectionable,  and 
sometimes,  it  must  be  added,  with  very  suf- 
ficient reason.  The  idea  which  serves  as  the 
basis  for  their  creation  is  the  desire  of  express- 
ing in  a  single  word  what  will  otherwise  re- 
quire a  phrase  of  more  or  less  length.  They 
usually  undergo  a  long  probation  before  they 
enter  into  the  classical  speech,  and  sometimes 
they  never  reach  that  haven  at  all.  There  are, 
for  instance,  at  the  present  time  three  words  of 
this  class  not  unfrequently  used  in  newspapers. 
They  are  burgle,  meaning  'to  commit  burglary,' 
enthuse,  *to  be  filled  with  enthusiasm,'  and 
resurrect,  *to  rob  a  grave  of  a  dead  body  for 
the  purpose  of  dissection.'  The  last  of  these 
has  further  developed  resurrectionist  or  resurrec- 
tion-man, to  denote  the  sort  of  persons  pursu- 
ing that  grewsome  occupation.  With  this  com- 
pound Dickens's  Tale  of  Two  Cities  has  made 
us  all  familiar.  It  is  never  easy  to  tell  where 
and  when  locutions  of  this  sort  originate,  unless 
we  adopt  the  short  and  easy  method  followed 
in  England  of  attributing  them  all  to  America. 
Of  the  three  enthuse,  which  is  most  objection- 
able, seems  the  only  one  to  which  we  on  this 
side  of  the  water  can  lay  an  assured  claim. 
Not  one  of  them,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  been 
198 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN  WORDS 

seriously  employed  by  authors  whose  use  of  it 
would  give  a  sort  of  sanction  to  its  acceptance. 
So  long  as  that  condition  of  things  exists,  these 
words  must  be  relegated  exclusively  to  colloquial 
speech,  and  must  be  content  to  find  themselves 
stigmatized  as  *'low"  in  the  dictionaries.  That 
will  remain  their  status  until  the  only  authority 
capable  of  giving  them  position  in  the  language 
has  pronounced  in  their  favor. 

There  are  those  who  insist  that  no  such  au- 
thority can  be  found  anywhere;  that  back- 
formations  have  no  right  to  their  existence. 
This  is  a  principle  they  lay  down  to  which  their 
practice  does  not  conform.  At  the  present  day 
no  one  is  disposed  to  take  exception  to  the  use 
of  the  word  greed.  For  nearly  a  century  it  has 
been  found  in  such  excellent  company  that  few 
appreciate  how  recent  is  its  introduction  into  the 
classical  speech.  It  is  a  Scotticism  pure  and 
simple.  In  Sir  John  Sinclair's  observation  on 
the  Scotch  dialect,  published  in  1782,  he  spoke 
of  it  as  "a  corruption  of  greediness."  That 
it  certainly  is  not.  It  is  merely  a  back- 
formation  from  greedy.  The  Anglo-Saxon  has 
no  noun  from  which  greed  descended,  or  if 
it  had,  it  did  not  transmit  it  to  later  times. 
Greedy,  however,  existed  from  the  earliest  period. 
Out  of  this  adjective  Scotland  created  the  noun 
14  199 


k 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

greed.  No  one  is  likely  now  to  deny  the  value  of 
the  word  or  that  it  has  an  expressiveness  which 
does  not  belong  to  the  regularly  formed  derivative 
greediness.  The  loss  of  it  would  be  an  absolute 
loss  to  the  language. 

Take  an  illustration  of  another  sort.  Many 
will  remember  that  a  few  years  ago  there  went 
on  a  violent  controversy  about  the  word  tireless. 
The  discovery  had  been  made  that  -less  was  a 
suffix  which  could  properly  be  appended  only 
to  nouns.  Hence  the  form  must  be  discarded, 
and  we  must  all  take  pains  to  say  untiring. 
The  duty  of  so  doing  was  preached  from  scores 
of  professorial  and  newspaper  pulpits.  No  one 
seemed  to  think  of  or  care  for  the  various  other 
adjectives  similarly  formed,  and  therefore  liable 
to  the  similar  censure  which  they  never  received. 
Hostility  was  directed  against  it  alone.  The 
actual  flaw  which  vitiated  the  arguments  against 
tireless,  its  censors  never  knew  or  never  took 
into  consideration.  This  was  that  the  fancied 
rule  covering  the  creation  of  such  words  had 
practically  long  ceased  to  be  operative  when- 
ever a  new  formation  struck  the  sense  of  the 
users  of  language  as  being  desirable. 

Unquestionably,  in  our  earliest  speech  the 
suffix  -less,  when  employed  to  form  adjectives, 
was  joined  only  with  nouns.     But  the  general 

200 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

sloughing  off  of  nominal  and  verbal  endings 
which  went  on  in  later  centuries  reduced  a  great 
proportion  of  substantives  and  verbs  in  the 
speech  to  precisely  the  same  form.  In  conse- 
quence the  sense  of  any  fundamental  distinction 
between  the  two  broke  down  in  many  ways,  in 
one  way  in  particular.  There  is  nothing  easier 
in  our  speech  than  to  convert  a  verb  into  a  noun 
or  a  noun  into  a  verb.  It  is  a  process  which  has 
taken  place  constantly  in  the  past,  and  is  liable 
to  take  place  at  any  time  in  the  future,  either 
at  the  will  or  the  whim  of  the  writer  or  speaker. 
This  applies  more  particularly  to  the  earlier 
words  of  our  tongue,  than  to  those  of  later  in- 
troduction. The  former  have  usually  lost  their 
distinctive  terminations.  They  therefore  pass 
with  ease  from  one  part  of  speech  into  another. 
Take  the  case  of  black.  It  is  in  the  first  place 
an  adjective.  We  can  form  from  it,  and  have 
formed  from  it  by  means  of  the  suffix  ~en,  the 
verb  blacken.  But  while  we  retain  this,  and 
use  it,  we  no  longer  feel  its  absolute  necessity. 
We  can  and  do  use  the  adjective  itself  as  a  verb. 
Furthermore,  we  not  unfrequently  convert  it  into 
a  substantive.  This  is  but  one  of  hundreds  of 
instances  which  could  be  adduced  of  the  tran- 
sitions which  are  going  on  constantly  in  our 
language   in    consequence    of    words    being    so 

20I 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

stripped  of  endings  as  to  present  only  their 
root  form.  Now  and  then,  in  consequence, 
some  example  of  this  easy  transformation  from 
one  part  of  speech  into  another  becomes,  for 
undefined  reasons,  an  object  of  attack.  It  was 
but  a  very  few  years  ago  that  an  onslaught 
was  made  upon  the  use  of  the  word  voice  as 
a  verb.  It  was  denounced  as  a  neologism  by 
men  who  had  certainly  forgotten  their  Shake- 
speare, not  to  speak  of  numerous  other  authors. 
In  truth,  in  the  case  of  our  early  words,  whether 
of  native  or  of  French  origin,  a  noun  can  be 
used,  as  has  just  been  remarked,  as  a  verb  or  a 
verb  as  a  noun  at  the  discretion  of  the  speaker. 
To  a  less  extent  this  is  true  of  later  words  of 
Latin  origin.  Still  there  are  instances  of  such 
transition  of  usage,  making  in  consequence 
nonce-words,  which,  even  when  used  by  authors 
of  eminence,  have  not  as  yet  found  record  in 
the  fullest  dictionaries.  Gibbon,  for  illustra- 
tion, writing  from  Lausanne  in  1755,  employed 
communion  as  a  verb.  **  Brought  up,"  he  said, 
"with  all  the  ideas  of  the  Church  of  England, 
I  could  scarce  resolve  to  communion  with  Pres- 
byterians, as  all  the  people  of  this  country  are."* 
But  the  example  of  this  sort   of  transition 

^Private  Letters  of  Edward  Gibbon,  vol.  i.,  p.  3  (1896). 
202 


ON    HOSTILITY   TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

which  has  been  made  of  special  significance  is 
the  conversion  of  the  noun  loan  into  a  verb. 
Very  many  worthy  persons  have  been  aroused 
by  this  practice  into  a  state  of  wrath  hardly 
distinguishable  from  delirium.  About  no  usagp 
have  statements  been  made  more  extraordinary 
and  more  preposterous.  It  is  only  ignorance  or 
snobbery,  we  have  been  told,  that  would  lead 
men  to  resort  to  its  use.  "The  word,"  says  one 
of  its  denouncers,  "is  the  past  participle  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  verb  Icsnan,  to  lend,  and  therefore, 
of  course,  means  lent."  ^  It  is  not  easy  to  imag- 
ine what  possible  conception  of  the  forms  of 
Anglo-Saxon  verbs  could  ever  have  suggested 
such  an  impossible  derivation.  It  implies  not 
merely  the  ignorance  of  a  particular  word,  but 
of  a  whole  part  of  speech. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  loan  is  a  word  of  Scandi- 
navian origin  which  after  the  Norman  Conquest 
took  the  place  of  the  corresponding  Anglo-Saxon 
noun  from  which  lene  was  derived.  This  lene 
as  has  already  been  mentioned,^  assumed  a  d 
to  which  it  was  not  entitled  and  became  lend, 
a  form,  strictly  speaking,  corrupt,  but  which  like 
many  other  corruptions  we  have  come  to  cher- 
ish.     But    the   Scandinavian   substantive  loan 

^  R.  G.  White,  Words  and  Their  Uses,  p.  137. 
'  See  page  70. 

203 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

was  itself  early  used  as  a  verb.  In  the  Parlia- 
ment of  1542-43  an  act  was  passed  concerning 
collectors  and  receivers.  There  is  so  little  orig- 
inality in  the  world  that  it  is  not  a  matter  to 
excite  surprise  that  the  reasons  given  for  enact- 
ing the  law  reveal  the  existence  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  VI 11.  of  the  same  sort  of  rascality  which 
has  never  died  out  since.  Incidentally,  the  act 
introduces  us  to  this  particular  word  used  as  a 
verb.  In  it  we  are  informed  that  these  officers 
of  the  revenue  had  been  in  the  habit  of  retaining 
the  tax  collected,  and  converting  it  to  their  own 
"singular  profit  and  commodity  as  in  toning 
and  laying  out  the  same  for  gaynes  and  purchas- 
ing land  of  greate  value,  and  in  bying  of  wooles 
and  other  marchaundize,  whereby  the  kinges 
majestic  hathe  ofte  tymes  lost  greate  parte  of 
his  debtes  and  dueties."  This  is  but  one  of 
several  instances  of  the  early  employment  of  this 
word  which  are  given  in  the  new  Historical 
Dictionary  of  our  speech.  But  though  the  usage 
goes  back  for  several  centuries  in  England,  there 
is  little  question  that  it  is  in  this  country  it 
early  secured  and  retained  the  widest  currency. 
Hence  it  is  fair  to  say  of  it  that  though  not 
American  in  origin,  it  is  American  by  adoption. 
Instances  of  it  occur  every  now  and  then  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  "Colonel  Humphreys," 
204 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO   CERTAIN   WORDS 

wrote  Joel  Barlow  in  1778,  *'has  made  me  prom- 
ise to  loan  him  the  plan  and  the  first  book  of 
my  poems  to  read  at  headquarters."^  Its  not 
imfrequent  use  in  America  has  led  some  of  the 
more  scrupulous  to  assume  an  air  of  superiority 
for  their  abstention  from  its  employment.  To 
censure  it  is  felt  to  give  the  impression  of  posses- 
sing high  social  culture.  "Loaned,"  comments 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  "as  the  inland  folks  say, 
when  they  mean  *lent.'"^  Now,  linguistically 
speaking,  no  exception  whatever  can  be  justly 
taken  to  the  use  of  this  noun  as  a  verb.  Hun- 
dreds of  other  substantives  have  gone  through 
precisely  the  same  experience.  What  distin- 
guishes it  from  its  fellows  is  that  for  some  reason 
it  has  been  made  the  subject  of  hostile  criticism. 
Yet  the  only  thing  about  it  that  can  come  prop- 
erly under  consideration  is  not  its  character, 
but  its  necessity.  This  is  a  matter  which  can 
never  be  decisively  settled  by  individuals,  but 
must  be  left  to  be  determined  by  the  great  body 
of  the  cultivated  users  of  speech. 

To  go  back  to  tireless.  This  lack  of  distinction 
in  the  form  of  words  which  are  both  verbs  and 
nouns,  this  frequent  interchange  in  their  use 
naturally   affected   the   derivatives   from   their 

*  C.  B.  Todd,  Life  and  Letters  of  Joel  Barlow,  p.  37. 
'  Elsie  Venner,  chap.  vii. 
205 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

steins.  So,  from  the  sixteenth  century  on,  we 
have  had  a  very  respectable  number  of  adjec- 
tives formed  by  adding  the  suffix  -less  to  the 
verb,  not  because  it  has  been  employed  as  a 
noun,  but  because  it  is  always  capable  of  being 
so  employed.  But  there  is  sure  to  be  one  word 
selected  for  special  reprobation  from  the  class 
of  presumed  offenders  against  some  assumed 
canon  of  speech.  While  others  of  precisely 
the  same  character  are  used  by  every  one  with- 
out being  subjected  to  criticism  or  even  com- 
ment, this  particular  one  is  chosen  to  be  the 
scape-goat  to  bear  into  the  wilderness  the  burden 
of  the  sins  of  all  its  brethren.  In  the  case  of 
the  class  of  words  under  consideration,  it 
chanced  to  be  tireless.  The  verb  upon  which 
it  is  formed  could  have  been  treated  as  a  noun 
had  the  users  of  language  been  so  inclined. 
That  they  were  not  so  inclined  is  a  mere  accident 
of  usage.  The  possibility  of  such  employment 
of  it  was  and  is  always  latent.  As  a  consequence 
it  was  subjected  to  precisely  the  same  treatment 
as  might  have  befallen  it  without  reproach 
had  it  chanced  to  pass  over  in  general  usage 
from  the  class  of  verbs  into  that  also  of  nouns. 
It  came  to  have  appended  to  it  a  termination 
which  originally  had  been  limited  to  sub- 
stantives. How  much  this  was  a  mere  whim 
?oO 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

of  usage  can  be  seen  in  the  case  of  ceaseless. 
This  word  has  been  in  regular  use  since  the  six- 
teenth century.  To  the  general  consciousness 
its  first  syllable  is  never  anything  but  a  verb; 
but  as  to  a  slight  extent  it  has  been  employed 
for  a  long  while  as  a  noun,  the  formative  brings 
no  grief  to  the  most  anxious  of  purists. 

It  has  just  been  intimated  that  tireless  is  far 
from  being  the  only  offender  of  its  class.  There 
is  no  small  number  of  such  formatives  in  our 
speech.  They  have  come  into  general  use,  and 
continue  in  it  without  protest  and  apparently 
without  discovery.  Others  there  are  which  are 
the  coinage  of  particular  writers,  and  are  used 
only  by  them  or  their  imitators.  Of  each  of 
these  classes  a  few  examples  will  be  given;  but 
they  will  be  sufficient  to  put  the  truth  of  the 
statement  beyond  question.  Take  first  the  words 
which  have  come  into  fullest  acceptance.  Who 
would  hesitate  now  to  say  dauntless?  It  has 
been  in  continuous  and  still  continuing  use  from 
the  time  of  Shakespeare  to  the  present  day.  It 
was  employed  by  Milton,  by  Pope,  by  Gray, 
and  appears  in  the  title  itself  of  one  of  Scott's 
poems.  With  Macaulay  it  seems  to  have  been 
a  somewhat  favorite  word.  Milton  did  not  con- 
fine himself  to  irresistible.  Resistless  is  found 
not  alone  in  his  poetry;  in  his  prose  he  spoke 
207 


THE   STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

of  "nature's  resistless  sway."^  This  word  was 
also  very  common  in  Dr.  Johnson's  writings, 
and  is  further  found  in  Raleigh,  in  Dry  den,  in 
Keats,  and  doubtless  in  scores  of  other  authors. 
Gray,  in  his  Hymn  to  Adversity,  addressed  that 
goddess  as  "relentless  power."  The  same  ad- 
jective had  been  previously  used  by  Milton,  by 
Dry  den,  by  Pope,  and  by  his  own  contemporary 
Dr.  Johnson.  It  would  probably  be  a  matter  of 
some  difficulty  to  find  any  author  since  who 
would  feel  it  necessary  to  use  unrelenting  in  its 
stead.  Quenchless  again  has  been  in  common  use 
from  the  time  of  Shakespeare  to  the  present  day. 
He  was  not  the  first  to  employ  it ;  nor  apparently 
has  any  one  since  his  day  felt  an  overpowering 
desire  to  substitute  for  it  unquenchable. 

When  we  come  to  words  of  the  second  class, 
there  is  little  limit  to  these  possible  formations. 
Any  writer  may  coin  them:  their  adoption  by 
others  is  a  matter  of  chance.  All  we  know  of 
them  is  that  they  have  never  come  into  general 
acceptance.  Milton,  in  one  of  his  prose  works ,^ 
speaks  of  the  endurance  of  **a  clamorous  debate 
of  utter  less  things."  Peele,  in  his  Arraignment 
of  Paris,^  has  "thriveless  swain."     In  Sir  Philip 

*  Doctrine  and  Discipline  of  Divorce ^  chap.  xxi. 

'Act  iii.,  scene  i. 

208 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

Sidney's  Masque  of  the  Lady  of  May  one  of  the 
characters  is  told  not  to  be  **bashless."  In  this 
opposite  of  bashful,  hash  is  an  aphetic  form  of 
the  verb  abash.  These  all  belong  to  an  early 
period,  but  there  are  plenty  of  late  examples. 
In  February,  1826,  Charles  Lamb  remonstrated 
with  Bernard  Barton  for  his  use  of  one  of  these 
same  formations.  "One  word,"  he  wrote,  **I 
must  object  to  in  your  little  book,  and  it  occurs 
more  than  once  —  fadeless  is  no  genuine  com- 
pound ;  loveless  is,  because  love  is  a  noim  as  well 
as  a  verb;  but  what  is  fadeV  Lamb  seemed 
to  be  unaware  that  as  early  as  1796,  in  the 
volume  of  Coleridge's  poems  published  that  year, 
to  which  he  had  contributed  three  pieces  of  his 
own,  his  friend  in  addressing  Cottle,  whom  he 
styled  "unboastful  bard,"  had  expressed  the 
wish,  "May  yoiu*  fame  fadeless  be."  Lamb 
himself  was  destined  to  furnish  later  an  awful 
example  of  the  assumed  fault  he  reprehended. 
In  the  translation  from  Palingenius,  which  he 
published  in  1832,  he  weakly  yielded  to  the  re- 
quirements of  verse  and,  using  neither  immovable 
nor  motionless,  spoke  of  "the  moveless  stone." 
In  his  novel  of  Venetia,  Disraeli  mentioned 
''avoidless  care."  Browning,  too,  committed 
a  similar  offence,  if  it  be  an  offence.  In  A 
Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  he  permitted  Merton  to 
209 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

ask  Mildred  if  she  could  see  "no  expressless 
glory  in  the  East."  The  heroine  failed  to  point 
out  to  him,  as  she  should  have  done,  the  im- 
propriety of  employing  this  word  in  place  of 
inexpressible.  Lowell,  again,  was  taken  to  task 
for  saying  weariless,  just  as  Stevenson  employed 
the  corresponding  weariful.  He  resolutely  re- 
fused to  give  it  up.  "I  don't  agree  with  you 
about  weariless y''  he  wrote.  "In  language  one 
should  be  nice,  but  not  difficult.  ...  I  thought  of 
the  objection  when  I  was  correcting  the  proof." 
It  is  needless  to  multiply  further  examples. 
The  so-called  rule  limiting  the  suffix  -less  to 
nouns  is  no  longer  deemed  binding  by  the  great 
body  of  the  educated  users  of  speech.  With 
their  decisions  it  is  vain  for  the  objector  to 
struggle.  His  only  course  is  to  bear  his  affliction 
patiently,  and  content  himself  with  assuring 
his  misguided  fellow-men,  as  in  King  Lear, 
Gloucester  did  the  gods,  that  he  will  no  longer 
fall 

"To  quarrel  with  your  great  opposeless  wills." 

The  third  agency  which  produces  the  hostile 
state  of  mind  indicated  concerns  itself  not  with 
the  form  or  grammatical  nature  of  a  locution, 
but  with  its  meaning.  It  is,  therefore,  directed 
almost  exclusively  against  the  use  of  certain 

2IO 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

words  or  certain  senses  of  words.  The  aversion 
usually  arises  from  the  fact  that  such  words 
connote  some  idea  upon  which  the  attention  has 
been  made  to  fix  itself.  This  by  being  rendered 
prominent  renders  the  term  itself  offensive. 
Hence  some  word  or  some  meaning  of  a  word, 
after  having  been  for  a  long  while  held  in 
highest  repute,  becomes  an  object  of  oppro- 
brium. This  point  can  be  set  forth  sharply 
and  clearly  by  giving  an  account  in  detail  of 
one  or  two  examples. 

Let  us  consider  first  a  word  which  is  now  in 
the  best  of  use,  but  for  a  long  time  was  prac- 
tically banished  from  the  speech.  This  is  the 
verb  occupy.  It  came  into  the  language  in  the 
fourteenth  century.  From  that  time  until  the 
seventeenth  it  was  used  in  a  variety  of  senses. 
But  one  of  them  carrying  an  indelicate  meaning 
became  so  fixed  upon  it  in  the  popular  appre- 
hension that  it  was  sure  always  to  suggest  itself 
whenever  the  word  was  employed.  The  result 
was  that  for  about  the  space  of  over  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  it  is  scarcely  found  in  the  literary 
speech.  The  degradation  which  had  already 
overtaken  it,  when  the  second  part  of  Henry 
IV.  appeared — which  was  before  1600 — is  in- 
dicated by  the  comment  made  by  one  of  the 
characters  in  this  play  upon  the  title  of  captain 
211 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

applied  to  Pistol.  "These  villains,"  she  says, 
"  will  make  the  word  as  odious  as  the  word 
*  occupy';  which  was  an  excellent  word  before 
it  was  ill-sorted" — ^that  is,  before  it  had  ill 
associations.  Ben  Jonson  had  a  remark  to  the 
same  effect.  *'Many,"  said  he,  "out  of  their 
own  obscene  apprehensions,  refuse  proper  and 
fit  words — as  occupy,  nature,  and  the  like."^ 
In  the  case  of  these  two  the  hostility  dis- 
played failed  utterly  to  affect  the  fortunes  of 
the  one,  while,  as  we  have  seen,  it  seriously  im- 
paired those  of  the  other.  From  its  temporary 
degradation,  however,  it  has  now  recovered. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  all 
the  evil  ideas  connected  with  occupy,  which 
had  led  to  its  disuse,  had  been  forgotten.  As 
a  consequence  it  was  brought  back  again  into 
the  common  speech. 

The  fortunes  of  words,  indeed,  are  subject  to 
as  many  vicissitudes  as  the  fortunes  of  in- 
dividuals. A  specially  noteworthy  illustration 
of  this  fact  has  taken  place  almost  before  the 
eyes  of  the  men  of  this  generation.  There  is 
perhaps  no  one  term  which  just  now  deserves 
more  commiseration  for  the  hard  fate  which 
has  befallen  it  than  the  substantive  female  used 

*  De  Stilo,  Discoveries, 

212 


ON    HOSTILITY   TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

as  a  synonym  for  'woman.'  In  reading  the 
denunciations  of  it  constantly  met  with  at  this 
day,  the  mind  instinctively  reverts  to  the  line 
of  Goldsmith  deploring  the  lot  of  the  unfortunate 
being  denoted  by  it.  **Tum  thine  eyes,"  says 
the  poet,  in  his  Deserted  Village, 

"  Where  the  poor  houseless  shivering  female  lies.** 

The  epithets  Goldsmith  applied  to  the  condition 
of  the  character  depicted  by  the  word  are  now, 
in  a  certain  measure,  applicable  to  the  condition 
of  the  word  itself.  It  is  ttimed  out-of-doors  by 
every  corrector  of  the  press.  It  is  contemptu- 
ously spoken  of  as  a  vulgarism;  modem  ignorance 
has  sometimes  styled  it  a  modem  vulgarism. 
Such  by  no  means  has  been  always  its  position. 
Like  Goldsmith's  'female,'  the  word  has  seen 
better  days.  It  was  once  to  be  met  everywhere 
in  good  society.  The  most  pedantic  of  purists 
expressed  no  objection  to  it;  the  most  scrupu- 
lous of  writers  imhesitatingly  employed  it.  Its 
story  is  accordingly  worth  giving  in  full;  for  to 
it  belongs  more  than  the  interest  of  the  passing 
moment.  It  is  the  representative  of  a  class, 
and  its  varying  fortimes  show  the  all-dominating 
power  of  usage,  and  in  particular  its  frequent 
disposition  to  frown  upon  some  special  locution 
213 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

while  receiving  into  favor  some  other  locution 
having  characteristics  essentially  similar. 

The  word  female  reaches  us  from  the  Latin 
through  the  French.  The  remote  original  in  the 
mother  tongue  was  femella,  'a young  girl,'  which 
in  the  daughter  tongue  became  femelle.  Femella 
was  an  uncommon  word  in  classical  Latin  litera- 
ture. It  itself  is  a  diminutive  of  femina.  This 
latter  word  was  regularly  employed  in  Latin  to 
designate  the  female  of  the  human  species,  but 
was  likewise  applied  in  that  tongue  to  the 
female  of  the  lower  animals.  Its  descendant 
in  the  French  of  to-day  is  femme. 

Femme  did  not  pass  over  into  English;  but 
femelle  did.  It  made  its  appearance  in  our 
language  in  the  general  invasion  of  French 
words  which  took  place  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury. Therefore  its  strictly  correct  form  is 
femelle;  and  such  it  was  with  us  originally. 
But  this  did  not  long  continue.  Almost  from 
the  very  outset  the  tendency  manifested  itself 
to  corrupt  the  word  into  its  present  form.  This 
was  doubtless  due  in  part  to  the  ending  being 
confused  with  the  suffix  -al,  which  was  even 
then  displacing  the  -el  in  terms  of  French  origin. 
But  the  main  influence  in  producing  the  change 
was  the  word  male,  which  had  come  into  the 
language  at  the  same  time.  Then  as  now  the 
214 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN  WORDS 

two  words  stood  in  frequent  juxtaposition  and 
antithesis. 

Female,  as  substantive  and  adjective,  goes 
back  to  the  fourteenth  century;  but  though 
the  noun  was  then  occasionally  employed  as  a 
synonym  for  *  woman,'  such  usage  can  hardly 
be  called  common.  Still  it  is  found.  The 
Wycliffite  translation  of  the  Bible,  for  illustra- 
tion, reads  in  the  twenty-fourth  chapter  of 
Matthew  that  two  women  shall  be  grinding  at  a 
quern,  the  one  to  be  taken,  the  other  left.  But 
in  the  polemic  treatise  Wycliffe  wrote,  expound- 
ing this  same  chapter,  the  two  "women"  of  the 
gospel  appear  as  two  "females."  The  word 
turns  up  occasionally  from  that  time  during 
the  three  centuries  that  follow;  but  so  far  as  any 
one  man's  necessarily  limited  reading  justifies 
the  drawing  of  general  inferences  it  appears  but 
occasionally.  In  Shakespeare,  for  instance,  in 
any  senses  which  it  has  as  a  noun,  it  occurs  but 
eleven  times,  while  there  are  more  than  four 
hundred  passages  where  woman  is  employed.  In 
two  places,  indeed,  where  the  dramatist  uses  it, 
the  implication  is  conveyed  that  the  term  be- 
longed to  what  Ben  Jonson  called  "the  per- 
fumed phrases  of  the  time."  One  example  we 
see  in  Love's  Labor's  Lost,  in  the  letter  which  is 
sent  to  the  King  of  Navarre  by  Don  Armado, 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

described  as  "the  refined  traveller  of  Spain." 
This  character  is  represented  throughout  the 
play  as  revelling  in  the  choicest  phraseology. 
In  the  epistle  he  charges  the  clown  Costard  as 
consorting  with  "a  child  of  our  grandmother 
Eve,  a  female,  or  for  thy  more  sweet  under- 
standing, a  woman."  Again,  in  As  You  Like 
It,  Touchstone  gives  certain  directions  to  his 
rival  William,  in  language  which  contrasts,  or 
seems  intended  to  contrast,  the  two  words  as 
employed  in  ordinary  and  in  affected  use. 
"Therefore,"  says  he,  "you  clown,  abandon — 
which  is  in  the  vulgar,  leave — the  society — 
which  in  the  boorish  is  company — of  this  female, 
which  in  the  common  is  woman." 

The  word  is  found  now  and  then  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  other  dramatists  of  the  period,  as,  for 
instance,  Fletcher  and  Massinger;  but  if  I  can 
trust  the  results  of  my  own  reading,  while  not 
objected  to,  it  was  not  largely  employed.  But 
there  was  plainly  manifest  a  slowly  but  steadily 
increasing  tendency  on  the  part  of  good  writers 
to  make  use  of  it  during  the  latter  part  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  even  more  in  the 
early  part  of  the  eighteenth.*     Still,  while  it  is 

*See,    for   example,   in   Richard   Steele's  periodical 
publication    entitled    The    Lover,    consisting    of    forty 
papers,  from  February  25  to  May  27,  1714.     In  these 
216 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

found  oftener  than  before,  it  is  not  found  often. 
It  was  not  that  there  was  any  stigma  attached 
to  it  such  as  now  exists ;  it  simply  did  not  occur 
to  men  to  employ  it,  save  possibly  for  the  sake 
of  giving  variety  to  expression,  or  because  in  cer- 
tain passages  it  struck  them  as  being  somehow 
more  appropriate.  All  assertions  of  this  sort 
must  indeed  be  taken  with  a  good  many  grains 
of  allowance.  They  represent  impressions  rather 
than  systematic  and  thorough  investigation ;  for 
no  wide-embracing  study  of  the  practice  of  our 
great  writers  in  the  matter  of  disputed  usages, 
either  of  words  or  constructions,  has  ever  yet 
been  made.  Until  that  is  done  something  of  un- 
tmcertainty  must  attach  itself  to  what  are  on  the 
surface  apparently  well-founded  conclusions. 

But  by  the  time  we  reach  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  we  have  left  behind  the 
region  of  doubt.  A  complete  change  has  come 
over  the  fortunes  of  the  word.  Female  as  a  syn- 
onym for  *  woman  '  had  become  then  com- 
paratively common  in  the  very  best  usage.  One 
may  almost  venture  to  say  that  it  sprang  into 
fashion  with  the  appearance  of  the  modem 
novel.  It  is  far  from  infrequent  in  the  works 
of  Richardson,  Fielding,  and  Smollett.     As  we 

the  noirn  female  occurs  eight  times  —  No.  2,  twice; 
No.  3,  twice;  and  once  each  in  Nos.  13,  20,  23,  25. 

217 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

have  seen  from  the  line  taken  from  Goldsmith 
— and  to  this  examples  from  other  authors  could 
be  added — it  sometimes  invaded  the  region  of 
poetry. 

There,  however,  it  was  strictly  out  of  place; 
and  so  it  was  perhaps  unconsciously  felt  to  be. 
Certainly  its  use  by  the  best  writers  in  that  form 
of  composition  was  distinctly  limited.  In  truth, 
female  as  a  noun,  in  all  periods  of  English,  be- 
longs rather  to  prose  than  to  poetry.  It  could, 
of  course,  have  belonged  to  the  latter,  had  the 
users  of  language  been  inclined  so  to  employ  it; 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  have  never  manifested 
any  such  disposition.  This  limitation  to  prose 
conveys  no  imputation  against  the  propriety 
or  usefulness  of  the  word.  It  is  a  characteristic 
which  it  shares  with  many  other  most  respectable 
terms,  with  some  terms  indeed  which  we  could 
hardly  do  without;  just  as  there  are  many 
valuable  and,  in  fact,  necessary  members  of 
society  who  would  not  feel  themselves  at  home 
in  the  most  select  circles,  or  be  so  looked  upon 
by  others.  In  a  letter  to  Coleridge,  Charles 
Lamb,  in  criticising  a  contribution  to  the  Anthol- 
ogy, declared  that  **the  epithet  enviable  would 
dash  the  finest  poem."  The  remark  was  a  just 
one.  Enviable  is  a  good  word,  a  proper  word. 
It  has  been  used  by  statesmen,  historians, 
218 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO   CERTAIN    WORDS 

novelists,  and  men  of  science;  but  it  ought  to 
know  its  place,  and  its  place  is  not  in  poetry, 
save  under  very  peculiar  conditions. 

Female  as  a  substantive  is  essentially  in  the 
same  class.  Charles  Lamb  would  not  have  been 
likely  to  favor  its  use  in  poetry.  But  in  prose, 
in  which,  as  he  said,  and  very  justly  said,  he  con- 
sidered himself  a  dab,  he  employed  it  not  infre- 
quently. In  his  private  correspondence  he  had 
no  hesitation  in  applying  it  to  his  dearly  loved 
sister.  But  he  probably  would  have  felt  that 
it  was  a  word  which  did  not  belong  to  high- 
wrought  expression,  and  therefore  under  ordi- 
nary circumstances  was  out  of  place  in  verse, 
so  long  as  verse  retains  the  associations  which  are 
generally  connected  with  it.  At  all  events,  it 
rarely  puts  in  an  appearance  in  poetry,  and, 
when  it  does  so,  it  is  usually,  though  not  in- 
variably, when  the  poetry  is  on  a  low  level. 

It  is  perfectly  clear,  however,  that  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  nothing  of  its  present  op- 
probrium attached  to  the  word.  One,  indeed, 
gets  at  times  the  impression  that  it  was  be- 
ginning to  displace  the  synonymous  'woman' 
in  general  usage.  How  little  there  was  of  aver- 
sion to  it  during  the  first  of  the  two  periods 
mentioned,  how  little  there  was  of  any  trace  of 
219 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

the  feelings  which  now  exist,  is  made  very  clear 
by  the  practice  of  Madame  D'Arblay.  In  her 
earlier  years,  as  Fanny  Burney,  she  employed 
it  in  her  novels.  At  times  the  word  makes  its 
appearance  in  her  other  writings  in  places  where 
it  strikes  the  sense  of  the  most  liberal-minded  in 
matters  of  usage  as  somewhat  incongruous,  not 
to  say  queer.  In  her  diary,  for  instance,  under 
the  year  1786,  she  speaks  of  the  Princess  Royal, 
not  as  the  second  lady,  but  as  "the  second 
female  in   the   kingdom."^ 

For  a  hundred  years  at  least  the  word  was 
not  only  in  common  but  in  the  best  of  use.  No 
one  objected  to  it,  no  one  apparently  thought 
about  it.  It  was  not  till  after  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century  that  the  crusade  against  it 
seems  to  have  begun ;  not  till  the  last  third  of  it 
that  it  came  to  be  effective.  At  all  events,  it  i^ 
only  then  that  it  becomes  noticeable;  but  of 
course  it  must  have  been  the  object  of  numerous 
previous  attacks  before  the  hostility  could  gather 
sufficient  volume  to  make  itself  perceptibly  felt. 
The  repugnance  to  it  has  become  so  extended 
that  it  has  led  the  editor  of  the  New  Historical 
English  Dictionary  now  appearing — a  diction- 
ary which  no  student  of  the  language  can  afford 

*  Vol,  iii.,  p.  62,  edition  of  1842. 
220 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

to  be  without — to  give  a  somewhat  misleading 
view  of  the  fortunes  of  the  word.  While  what  is 
said  of  it  may  be  itself  absolute  truth,  it  leaves 
out  so  much  of  the  truth  that  it  tends  to  produce 
an  altogether  wrong  impression.  There  is  not 
a  single  illustration  of  its  employment  by  any 
great  or  even  fairly  good  writer  after  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  though  such  could 
have  been  found  by  the  hundred.  The  citations 
are  taken  from  authors  little  known,  and  in  the 
matter  of  correct  usage  carrying  no  weight 
whatever.  Furthermore,  to  the  section  con- 
taining the  definition  of  the  word  as  a  mere 
synonym  of  'woman'  is  appended  the  remark 
"now  commonly  avoided  by  good  writers,  ex- 
cept with  contemptuous  implication. ' '  The  only 
confirmatory  authority  given  for  the  existence 
of  this  asserted  contemptuous  implication  is  an 
extract  from  a  daily  newspaper,  condemning  its 
employment.  No  one  knows  who  is  the  author 
of  the  censure — a  matter  of  first  importance. 
Whether  the  statement  made  be  true  or  false, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  arrive  at  a  nearer  ap- 
proach to  no  authority  at  all  upon  a  question 
of  usage. 

The  inference  may  be  entirely  unwarranted, 
but  the  citations  made  —  of  which  after  the 
opening  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  only  one 

221 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

of  any  weight  comes  from  Sir  Richard  Steele — 
with  the  accompanying  comment,  lead  to  the 
belief  that  the  word  during  the  last  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  has  been  at  no  time  in  general  good 
use.  Furthermore,  it  conveys  the  impression 
that  it  has  not  received  the  sanction  of  the  best 
writers  for  a  long  time  past;  for  a  feeling  such 
as  the  one  indicated  is  never  the  result  of  any 
mere  momentary  or  transient  hostility.  So  gen- 
eral, indeed,  has  now  become  this  assumption 
that  it  is  worth  while  to  give  an  outline  of  the 
history  of  the  fortunes  of  the  word  from  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  end  of 
the  nineteenth;  to  make  clear  its  claims  to 
perfect  respectability,  and  to  ascertain  who 
were  the  good  writers  of  the  period  indicated 
who  were  careful  to  avoid  it.  They  may 
have  existed,  but  up  to  the  present  time 
they  have  been  successful  in  eluding  my  own 
search. 

It  has  been  previously  remarked  that  at  the 
time  of  the  first  appearance  of  the  modem 
novel  the  word  was  in  the  fullest  vogue.  Rich- 
ardson not  only  employed  it  frequently,  but, 
in  his  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  coined  from  it 
femality  to  denote  the  female  nature.  This,  on 
several  occasions,  he  puts  in  the  mouth  of 
Harriet  Byron's  uncle,   Mr.    Selby.     "  Neither 

?22 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

you  nor  your  niece,"  he  tells  his  wife,  **  know- 
how  with  your  fine  soul  and  fine  sense,  to  go  out 
of  the  common  femality-path. "  *  But  manifestly 
this  word  found  no  favor  with  the  little  coterie 
of  women  who  surroimded  Richardson  and 
bowed  down  before  him  and  worshipped  him. 
The  heroine  herself  expressed  scorn  both  for  it 
and  for  what  it  implied.  She  brings  against  it 
one  crushing  argument.  It  is,  she  said,  "a 
word  I  don't  like:  I  never  heard  it  from  Sir 
Charles."^  This,  of  course,  settled  the  matter. 
But  while  there  was  dissatisfaction  with  the 
derivative,  no  one  thought  of  taking  ex- 
ception to  the  primitive.  The  same  condition 
of  things  is  evident  from  the  practice  of  the 
two  other  great  novelists  of  the  period.  In 
their  writings  there  is  not  the  slightest  hesita- 
tion in  using  the  word  either  when  speaking 
in  their  own  persons  or  through  one  of  their 
characters.  In  Tom  Jones,  for  illustration, 
female,  in  the  sense  of  *  woman,'  is  employed  at 
least   fifteen  times.^     In   Smollett's  Humphrey 

*  Sir  Charles  Grandison  (ist  ed.),  vol.  vi.,  p.  142. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  141. 

'  Bk.  i.,  chap,  vi.;  ibid.,  chap,  x.;  bk.  ii.,  chaps, 
iii.  (twice),  iv.  (twice);  bk.  iii.,  chap,  vi.;  bk.  v., 
chap,  ii.;  bk.  vi.,  chaps,  iii.,  viii.;  bk.  ix.,  chap, 
vi.;  bk.  X.,  chap,  ii.;  bk.  xiii.,  chaps,  v.,  vii. 
(twice). 

223 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

Clinker  it  is  found  thirteen  times.*  In  both 
these  works  there  may  be  some  instances 
overlooked  of  the  occurrence  of  the  word;  but 
even  if  so,  there  is  a  sufficient  number  cited 
to  establish  the  universality  of  its  accept- 
ance. 

Nor  during  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  were  women  in  the  slightest  degree 
averse  to  its  employment.  It  is  doubtful,  indeed, 
if  a  single  female  writer  who  flourished  between 
1750  and  1800  failed  to  make  use  of  it.  Take, 
for  instance,  Mrs.  Inchbald.  In  her  novel  enti- 
tled A  Simple  Story  it  occurs  several  times.  In 
1792  May  Wollstonecraft  brought  out  her  Vin- 
dication of  the  Rights  of  Woman.  Among 
those  rights  to  which  she  clung  was  apparently 
that  of  using  the  word  female  to  designate  the 
members  of  her  own  sex.  It  certainly  did  not 
occur  to  her  that  it  was  one  of  their  wrongs. 
But  the  most  persistent  offender  in  this  respect — 
if  it  be  an  offence — was  Fanny  Burney,  as  may 
be  inferred  from  the  example  already  given. 
In  her  writings,  whether  dealing  with  fact  or 
fiction,  the  word  is  likely  to  turn  up  on  any 
page.  To  the  modem  woman,  indeed,  she  might 
almost  seem  to  have  a  perverse  fondness  for  it. 

*  Smollett's  Works   (ed.  of  1872),  vol.  vii.,  pp.  191, 
197,  211,  215,  242,  272,  293,  296,  313,  316,  342,  424,  472. 
224 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

In  her  Diary  on  one  occasion  she  observes, 
"What  choice  has  a  poor  female  with  whom  she 
may  converse  ?"  *  On  another  she  intensifies  her 
preference  for  it  by  contrasting  it  with  the 
masculine  word  opposed  to  'woman.'  She  re- 
marks that  **the  three  men  and  the  three 
females  were  all  intimately  acquainted  with  one 
another."^  To  offset  this  affront  of  hers  to  her 
sex,  it  is  fair  to  quote  Fielding's  similar  affront 
to  his  own.  In  a  passage  speaking  of  the  dis- 
position of  fighting  women  to  strike  each  other 
on  the  nose,  he  remarks  that  according  to  some 
it  is  derived  "from  their  being  of  a  more  bloody 
inclination  than  the  males."  ^ 

So  much  for  the  eighteenth  century.  For 
three-fourths  of  the  nineteenth  the  same  state 
of  feeling  continues,  so  far  as  that  can  be  in- 
ferred from  the  practice  of  its  favorite  authors. 
No  reader  of  Scott  can  be  unaware  that  it  turns 
up  with  imfailing  regularity  in  his  writings.  It 
would  probably  be  safe  to  affirm  that  he  made 
as  frequent  use  of  it  as  he  did  of  its  synonym, 
if  not  more  frequent.  In  the  Legend  of  Mont- 
rose, for  instance,  female  appears  twelve  times 
and  woman  has  to  be  contented  with  six.     In  so 

^  Diary  and  Letters  of  Madame  D'Arblay  (ed.  of 
1842),  vol.  iii.,  p.   331.  ^Ibid,  p,  207. 

3  Tom  Jones,  bk.  iv.,  chap.  viii. 
225 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

expressing  himself  Scott  was  following  the  gen- 
eral practice  of  his  age,  so  far  at  least  as  fictitious 
narrative  was  concerned.  In  so  expressing  him- 
self he  was  followed  by  all  his  imitators  and  suc- 
cessors. Cooper,  in  fact,  has  been  reproached 
again  and  again  for  his  frequent  use  of  the  word, 
and  the  imputation  that  he  was  particularly  ex- 
ceptional in  this  respect  has  been  more  than 
once  conveyed  by  exceptionally  ill-informed 
critics.  The  accusation  can  be  brought  with  as 
much  justice  against  most,  and  perhaps  all,  of 
the  tale- writers  of  the  nineteenth  century  be- 
longing either  to  the  first  or  second  grade. 
Female  is  contained  in  Bulwer's  novel  of  Pelham, 
which  came  out  in  1828,  and  was  the  one  which 
first  brought  him  reputation ;  it  is  also  contained 
in  his  unfinished  novel  of  Pausanias,  which  was 
not  published  till  a  few  years  after  his  death. 
In  his  Rienzi,  which  appeared  in  1835,  it  is 
found  fourteen  times. ^  Dickens  exhibited  the 
same  attitude  towards  the  word.  In  the  Pick- 
wick Papers,^  his  first  novel,  it  occurs  thirty- 

^  Bk.  i.,  chaps,  iv.  (twice),  v.,  ix.,  xii.  (four);  bk.  iii., 
chap,  ii.;  bk.  iv.,  chap,  i.;  bk.  vi.,  chaps,  iv.,  v.;  bk. 
vii.,  chap,  i.;  bk.  x.,  chap.  vii. 

'^  Chaps,  vii.  (twice),  viii.,  ix.,  x.,  xii.,  xviii.  (twice), 
XX.,  xxii.,  XXV.,  xxvii.,  xxx.,  xxxiii.  (three),  xxxiv. 
(seven), xxxvii.,  xii.,  xlvi..  Hi.  (seven). 

226 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

three  times,  and  in  none  of  his  later  writings  is 
there  manifested  the  least  hesitation  about  em- 
ploying it.  The  same  thing  can  be  said  of 
Thackeray.  In  his  novel  of  Vanity  Fair,  female 
as  a  noun  appears  twenty -one  times.*  In  a 
similar  way  it  occurs  in  the  writings  of  Wash- 
ington Irving,  Disraeli,  Hawthorne,  George  Eliot, 
and  TroUope,  not  to  mention  others.  Some  of 
them  use  the  word  only  occasionally,  some 
frequently;  but  whether  using  it  little  or  much, 
there  is  never  to  be  found  in  any  of  them  an 
intimation  that  the  employment  of  it  was  at  all 
objectionable.  Still  less,  if  possible,  was  there 
indicated  any  intention  of  conveying  by  it  a 
contemptuous  implication. 

In  fact,  were  there  to  be  made  an  exhaustive 
study  of  the  usage  of  good  writers  who  flourished 
during  the  last  century — at  least,  before  the  last 
quarter  of  it — it  would  probably  be  found  that 
there  was  not  a  single  one  of  them  who  did  not 
feel  himself  fully  authorized  to  employ  the  word. 
Instances  have  been  given  of  the  results  which 
attend  the  examination  of  particular  works 
produced  before  the  middle  of  it  was  reached. 
Let  us  follow  this  up  by  specifying  the  facts 

*  In    chaps,  xii.,  xiii.,  xiv.,  xvi.,  xviii.,  xxix.,  xxx., 
xxxiv.,  XXXV.,  xlix.,  li.,  Hi.,  liv.,  Iviii.,  Ixiv.,   Ixv.     In 
chap.  xiv.  it  occurs  six  times. 
227 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

which  are  furnished  by  the  examination  of  an- 
other work  which  came  out  while  the  second 
half  of  the  century  was  well  under  way.  Charles 
Reade's  masterpiece,  The  Cloister  and  the 
Hearth,  was  published  in  1861.  In  it  female 
as  a  mere  synonym  of  'woman'  occurs  more 
than  twenty  times.  It  assuredly  never  oc- 
curred to  the  novelist  that  he  was  making  use 
of  either  affected  or  vulgar  speech,  or  that  he  had 
exposed  himself  to  the  slightest  censure  on  the 
ground  of  having  resorted  to  an  improper  usage. 
It  is  clear  that  the  elder  writers,  born  and 
brought  up  amid  the  linguistic  traditions  of  the 
earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  were  not 
in  the  slightest  degree  under  the  influences  now 
prevalent ;  and  that  the  disrepute  into  which  the 
word  has  fallen  is  mainly  the  work  of  the  last 
thirty  years.  It  is  hard  to  tell  under  what  cir- 
cumstances the  feeling  of  dislike  to  it  arose,  or 
what  were  the  main  determining  agencies  that 
brought  about  the  state  of  feeling  we  recognize 
as  existing  to-day.  If  the  remark  will  not  seem 
invidious,  I  am  inclined  to  attribute  the  disfavor 
in  which  it  is  now  held  to  the  ill-will  entertained 
and  expressed  towards  it  by  the  members  of  the 
sex  it  denotes.  It  may  be  said  that  they  ought 
to  have  a  determining  voice  in  choosing  the  ap- 
pellations by  which  they  are  designated.  But 
228 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

language  is  not  disposed  to  accord  to  either  man 
or  woman  this  liberty  of  selection.  Further- 
more, if  it  be  true  now  that  special  hostility  ex- 
ists on  their  part  to  the  use  of  the  word,  the 
examples  which  have  already  been  adduced 
prove  clearly  that  it  was  not  true  once.  Madame 
D'Arblay's  evidence  has  already  been  cited. 
Her  course  has  had  plenty  of  followers  among 
the  members  of  her  own  sex.  Among  these,  too, 
must  be  included  our  Jane  of  Janes.  She  not 
only  applied  the  word  to  the  characters  in  her 
novels,  but  used  it  when  she  was  speaking  of  her- 
self personally.  **I  think,"  wrote  Miss  Austen 
in  a  letter,  "I  may  boast  myself  with  all  possible 
vanity  to  be  the  most  unlearned  and  uninformed 
female  who  ever  dared  to  be  an  authoress."^ 

Here  are  two  words  employed  which  are  simply 
dreadful  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  modern 
woman.  It  once  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  present 
writer  to  have  an  extended  conversation  with  a 
noted  female  author  who  had  very  decided 
opinions  as  to  the  character  of  the  sex  to  which 
he  had  the  fortime  or  misfortune  to  belong. 
Among  other  things  she  expressed  the  utmost  in- 
dignation at  being  styled  an  "  authoress."  It  was 
not  for  the  like  of  me  to  contend  with  a  goddess 

*  Letter  of  December  i,  1815. 
229 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

who  insisted  upon  being  called  a  god.  Being, 
furthermore,  of  a  dull  masculine  apprehension, 
and  consequently  lacking  the  delicate  feminine 
perception  of  the  one  with  whom  I  was  talking,  I 
was  unable  to  detect  the  great  wrong  inflicted 
upon  her  by  having  her  sex  denoted;  nor  could 
I  understand  why  she  should  desire  to  have  her 
identity  as  a  woman  merged  in  that  of  a  sex 
physically  stronger,  to  be  sure,  but  in  her  opin- 
ion morally  inferior.  It  flitted  through  my  mind 
— the  thought  was  left  unexpressed — that  she 
would  probably  have  no  objection  to  becoming 
an  heiress,  and  in  such  a  case  might  prefer  to 
be  designated  by  that  term  rather  than  by 
heir. 

It  was  in  1815  that  Jane  Austen  termed 
herself  a  'female.'  The  indifference  manifested 
by  her  to  the  reproach  contained  in  the  usage 
continued  with  writers  of  her  own  sex  down  even 
to  the  close  of  the  century.  Recklessly  and  al- 
most ruthlessly  many  of  the  best  and  ablest 
among  them,  unconscious  of  the  rising  tide  threat- 
ening to  submerge  the  word,  kept  on  employing 
it  without  scruple  and  without  hesitation.  In 
1882  Fanny  Kemble  published  her  Records  of  a 
Later  Life.  In  it  she  denounced  with  vigor  the 
black  beetles  which  overran  the  rooms  in  her 
residence  near  Philadelphia.  They  were  es- 
830 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

pecially  attracted,  she  tells  us,  "to  unfortunate 
females  by  white  or  light-colored  muslin  gowns." 

But  something  more  painful,  not  to  say  more 
flagrant,  belonging  to  an  earlier  period,  has  to 
be  recorded.  In  January,  1846,  Miss  Barrett 
communicated  to  her  future  husband  certain 
facts  in  regard  to  Tennyson.  He  was,  she  told 
him,  writing  a  new  poem.  The  account  she 
gave  of  it  is  now  almost  harrowing  to  members  of 
her  sex,  not  for  what  she  says,  but  for  the  way  in 
which  she  says  it.  From  her  description  it  is 
evident  that  the  work  she  had  in  mind  was  the 
Princess.  "It  is,"  she  wrote,  "in  blank  verse 
and  a  fairy  tale,  and  called  the  University;  the 
University  members  being  all  females."  It 
shows  how  much  we  have  advanced  in  exquisite- 
ness  of  taste  and  in  propriety  of  speech  over 
Jane  Austen,  Mrs.  Browning,  George  Eliot,  and 
Fanny  Kemble,  that  the  thought  of  being  styled 
*  females '  would  awaken  grief  and  fiery  indigna- 
tion in  the  halls  of  Vassar,  Wellesley,  and  Bryn 
Mawr,  and  that  over  the  intervening  hills  Mount 
Holyoke  and  Smith  would  call  to  each  other  as 
deep  answers  unto  deep. 

This  utter  insensibility  of  the  past  shows  that 
there  is  really  nothing  in  the  word  itself  which 
justifies  the  sensitiveness  of  the  present;  and 
that  the  now  prevailing  prejudice  against  it  is 

"  231 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

purely  an  artificial  creation.  It  is  termed  arti- 
ficial, not  to  cast  any  discredit  upon  it,  but  to 
bring  out  distinctly  the  fact  that  the  dislike  ex- 
hibited towards  the  term  is  the  result  of  a 
special  linguistic  crusade,  not  a  normal  natural 
development  of  expression  such  as  attended  the 
extension  of  the  now  assailed  usage  beyond  its 
earlier  restricted  employment.  Occasionally  rea- 
sons for  this  feeling  outside  of  usage  have  been 
paraded  as  existing  in  the  nature  of  things.  The 
only  one  worth  mentioning  is  that  the  word  can 
be  and  is  used  in  two  senses.  It  designates  the 
female  of  the  human  race  and  the  female  of  the 
lower  animals.  In  this  it  resembles  its  remote 
Latin  original  femina.  It  is  doubtless  the  la- 
bored insistence  upon  one  of  the  meanings  de- 
noted by  the  word  that  has  brought  about  its 
present  unpopularity.  But  there  is  nothing 
peculiar  in  its  having  a  double  sense.  That  is  a 
characteristic  the  possession  of  which  it  shares 
with  nearly  every  common  word  in  the  speech. 
To  most  of  them  a  variety  of  significations  is 
attached,  and  it  is  the  context  alone  that  de- 
cides the  precise  one  intended.  If  the  speaker 
or  writer  has  expressed  himself  properly,  the 
most  profound  stupidity  cannot  miss  the  mean- 
ing, the  most  perverse  ingenuity  cannot  wrest  it 
from  its  natural  interpretation.  When,  for 
232 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN   WORDS 

illustration,  we  talk  of  a  bride  and  groom,  no 
one  feels  it  necessary  to  explain  that  the  at- 
tendant of  the  former  is  not  a  representative  of 
the  stables. 

Yet,  singular  as  it  may  seem,  the  argument 
has  been  seriously  advanced  that  the  employ- 
ment of  female  as  synonymous  with  'woman' 
would  result  in  confusion.  It  seems  impossible 
for  some  persons  to  comprehend  the  elementary 
fact  that  language  was  not  designed  "primarily 
for  the  use  of  idiots.  Both  in  conversation  and 
writing  something  must  be  left  to  the  unaided 
human  understanding.  If  a  man  insists  in  all 
sincerity  that  when  he  meets  the  word  female  in 
the  sense  of  'woman,'  he  is  unable  to  distin- 
guish it  from  the  same  word  designating  one  of 
the  lower  animals,  he  really  has  no  business  to  be 
at  large  in  a  civilized  community.  His  proper 
place  of  habitation  is  a  home  for  the  intellectually 
incurable.  When  it  comes  to  the  consideration 
of  questions  of  usage  he  will  meet  in  such  a  resort 
with  many  congenial  associates. 

The  purely  artificial  nature  of  the  present 
prejudice  is  further  made  manifest  by  the  fact 
that  it  does  not  exist  in  the  case  of  the  corre- 
sponding noun  male.  Like  female,  this  term  is 
applied  to  the  lower  animals  as  well  as  to  human 
beings.  Such  was  the  case  also  in  the  language 
233 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

from  which  it  is  derived;  such  it  remains  in 
the  languages  descended  from  it.  The  history 
of  male  with  us  resembles  in  most  respects  that 
of  the  word  to  which  it  is  often  so  antithetically- 
joined.  Like  that  it  came  to  us  from  the  Latin 
through  the  French.  Like  that  it  made  its  ap- 
pearance in  our  tongue  during  the  fourteenth 
century.  Like  that  it  belongs  to  the  language 
of  prose  rather  than  of  poetry.  But  for  some 
reason  it  has  never  been  made  the  subject  of 
persecution.  It  has  consequently  never  fallen 
from  its  high  position.  As  an  adjective,  too,  it 
has  intrenched  itself  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  Having  in  that  instrument  se- 
cured the  right  to  be  connected  with  the  suffrage, 
it  is  not  likely  to  suffer  from  any  restriction 
upon  its  right  to  usage. 

This  last  consideration  gives  additional  evi- 
dence of  the  artificial  nature  of  the  existing  prej- 
udice against  the  word  female.  The  hostility 
now  exhibited  towards  it  is  exhibited  towards  it 
as  a  noun  and  not  as  an  adjective.  No  reason 
in  the  nature  of  things  exists  for  making  any 
such  distinction.  Undoubtedly  efforts  have  been 
or  will  be  made  to  restrict  or  discard  any  such 
employment  of  it  by  those  highly  intellectual 
beings  who  insist  that  usage  must  be  logical. 
But,  unfortunately,  there  is  no  other  word  to  take 
234 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN   WORDS 

its  place.  Womanly  conveys  ordinarily  an  en- 
tirely different  idea,  and  feminine  would  often  be 
distinctly  inappropriate.  This  is  perhaps  the 
reason  why  no  one  seems  to  have  risen  up 
publicly  to  denounce  female  as  an  adjective; 
at  least  if  he  has,  no  perceptible  heed  has  been 
given  to  his  utterances.  Nor  in  regard  to  the 
word  as  thus  employed  has  any  pretence  ever 
been  put  forth  that  confusion  between  human 
beings  and  the  lower  animals  would  be  likely  to 
arise  in  consequence.  When  a  man  talks  of 
going  into  female  society,  not  even  the  most 
intellectually  obtuse  supposes  that  he  is  con- 
templating a  visit  to  the  barn-yard  in  order  to 
see  the  cows.  All  of  us  have  or  ought  to  have 
female  friends;  we  discuss  female  education;  we 
talk  of  female  beauty;  a  great  poet,  indeed,  in  a 
celebrated  passage,  ventured  to  speak  of  female 
errors.  We  cannot  read,  in  truth,  the  classic 
writers  of  our  tongue  without  constantly  coming 
across  some  employment  of  the  word  in  its 
attributive  sense. 

But  artificial  as  is  the  hostility  which  has  been 
worked  up  against  the  use  of  the  word,  it  has 
been  none  the  less  effective.  It  has  created 
against  it  a  prejudice  so  general  and  potent  that 
every  writer  who  is  sensitive  to  verbal  criticism 
is  disposed  to  avoid  it.  In  characterizing  this 
235 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

hostility  as  artificial,  it  must  not  be  inferred 
that  there  is  any  intent  to  pass  judgment  upon 
its  rightfulness.  The  question  of  the  desir- 
ability or  undesirability  of  the  expression  has 
so  far  not  come  at  all  into  consideration.  It 
is  with  its  history  that  this  discussion  of  it  deals, 
and  with  the  causes  which  have  brought  about 
the  estimate  with  which  it  is  now  regarded. 
It  has  been  selected  as  perhaps  the  most  signal 
illustration  of  the  varying  fortunes  which  can 
attend  a  particular  word,  and  of  the  fate  which 
may  chance  to  befall  one  against  which  an  or- 
ganized opposition  has  set  itself  in  motion. 
Female,  as  we  have  seen,  has  been  in  the 
language  for  more  than  six  centuries.  For 
most  of  that  time  it  has  been  in  good  repute: 
for  a  century  and  a  half  it  was  in  the  very  best 
of  repute.  Nobody  objected  to  it.  Nobody 
seems  even  to  have  thought  about  it.  So 
prevalent  was  the  use  of  it  by  all  persons  as 
well  as  by  the  best  writers,  that  when  colleges 
for  women  were  first  established  in  this  coimtry 
the  word  formed  part  of  their  title,  and  no 
one  questioned  the  propriety  of  so  designating 
them.  All  this  is  now  changed.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  the  noun  female  is  at  present  dis- 
tinctly under  the  ban.  The  same  agencies 
which  have  brought  it  into  disrepute  may  in  the 
236 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN   WORDS 

future  restore  it  again  to  favor.     But  of  that 
there  is  no  immediate  indication. 

Nor  need  it  be  denied  that,  taking  into  con- 
sideration the  general  practice  of  the  great 
body  of  otu:  best  writers  during  all  periods,  the 
influence  of  our  highest  literature  is  as  a  whole 
unfavorable  to  the  use  of  the  word  in  spite  of 
the  cotmtenance  it  received  during  the  greater 
portion  of  both  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  word 
'woman'  is  to  be  preferred.  But  it  is  the 
tenth  case  that  counts.  The  prejudice  against 
it,  if  carried  so  far  as  to  cover  this,  will  cripple 
to  some  extent  the  resources  of  the  language. 
When  Carlyle  sought  to  enhance  the  terrors  of 
the  battle  of  Prague  as  one  of  the  most  furious 
battles  of  the  world,  he  brought  home  to  all  of 
us  its  strenuous  nature  by  observing  that  the 
very  emblem  of  it  "done  on  the  piano  by 
females  of  energ}^  scatters  mankind  to  flight 
who  love  their  ears."^  How  inexpressibly  tame 
and  inadequate  it  would  have  been  to  have 
used  'women'  in  this  passage!  Furthermore, 
female  is  the  more  general  term.  It  is  not  and 
never  has  been  a  mere  synonym  for  'woman.' 
Consequently  the  loss  of  it  would  be  a  positive 

*  Frederick  the  Great,  bk.  xviii.,  chap.  ii. 
237 


OF 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

loss  to  the  language.  The  latter  word  signifies 
one  who  has  reached  a  mature  age.  It  would  be 
grossly  inappropriate  to  apply  it  to  a  small 
child,  and  no  one  in  his  senses  would  think  of 
so  doing.  But  female  belongs  to  all  ages,  from 
the  infant  to  the  great-grandmother.  Hence  it 
can  be  and  has  been  employed  where  the  ap- 
pearance of  any  other  word  would  be  un- 
justifiable, and  where  the  non-existence  of  it 
would  compel  the  users  of  language  to  resort 
to  a  clumsy  or  roundabout  mode  of  expres- 
sion. 

A  single  example  will  suffice  to  put  this  point 
beyond  dispute.  It  is  taken  from  a  letter  of 
Motley,  who,  it  may  be  added,  like  most  his- 
torians, was  in  the  habit  of  using  the  word  as 
a  noun.  In  writing  to  his  mother  from  Rome, 
towards  the  end  of  November,  1858,  he  told  her 
that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  getting  up  at  daylight, 
which  at  that  time  of  the  year  was  about  seven 
o'clock.  "Little  Mary  and  I  and  Susy,"  he 
added,  "have  a  cup  of  coffee  at  that  hour  to- 
gether, the  two  other  females  not  rising  so  early." 
In  this  instance  it  is  obvious  that  neither  women 
nor  ladies  would  have  expressed  what  the 
writer  had  it  in  his  mind  to  say.  The  only  word 
that  would  do  was  the  word  he  employed,  unless 
he  forced  himself  to  change  the  construction  of 
^38 


ON    HOSTILITY    TO    CERTAIN    WORDS 

his  sentence  or  went  into  roundabout  detail.  De- 
vices of  such  a  sort  are  distasteful  to  language. 
It  hates  circumlocution  much  more  than  in  the 
old  physical  theories  nature  used  to  abhor  a 
vacuum. 


VIII 

TO  AND   THE    INFINITIVE 

IN  his  Life  of  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang  records  with  pride  the  noble 
stand  taken,  not  by  any  mere  individual  Eng- 
lishman, but  by  the  English  government  itself, 
on  an  occasion  when  the  purity  of  the  speech 
was  threatened.  Negotiations  for  a  treaty  were 
going  on  at  Washington  between  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain.  The  subjects  for 
discussion  and  settlement  were  of  the  utmost 
gravity.  Controversy  existed  about  the  Ala- 
bama claims,  about  the  Canadian  fisheries,  about 
the  San  Juan  boundary,  besides  other  matters, 
of  minor  importance  indeed  compared  with  the 
foregoing,  but  nevertheless  of  importance  in 
themselves.  On  numerous  points  under  con- 
sideration there  was  naturally  wide  difference 
of  opinion.  Proposals  and  counter-proposals 
were  constantly  exchanged.  According  to  the 
account  given  in  the  biography,  a  difficulty, 
wholly  unnecessary,  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  English 
240 


TO   AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

commission.  In  addition  to  the  inevitable  dis- 
putes with  its  opponents  it  found  itself  a  good 
deal  annoyed  and  hampered  by  instructions  from 
the  home  government. 

At  last  an  agreement  was  reached.  It  in- 
volved certain  concessions  to  the  American  de- 
mands to  which,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  assent 
should  never  have  been  given.  Indeed,  Mr. 
Lang,  in  commenting  upon  the  negotiations, 
goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that  "the  English  is  a 
nation  which  practically  cannot  fight  on  points 
of  honor  and  delicacy."  There  is  often  a  ten- 
dency to  mistake  unwillingness  to  enter  into 
war  for  consciousness  of  inability  to  carry  it  on, 
or  for  indisposition  to  carry  it  through  to  the  end 
when  once  it  has  been  undertaken.  One  who  is 
not  an  Englishman  may  be  permitted  to  observe 
that  Mr.  Lang's  remark  exhibits  something  of 
the  influence  of  such  a  feeling.  As  this  world 
goes,  reluctance  to  fight  on  the  part  of  a  strong 
nation  implies,  also,  a  determination,  when  once 
war  is  undertaken,  not  to  recede  until  the  point 
in  dispute  has  been  definitely  settled  for  all  time. 
At  any  rate  a  country  hostile  to  England,  which 
should  seriously  set  out  to  act  upon  the  view  ex- 
pressed by  him,  may  rely  upon  being  treated  to 
one  of  the  most  unpleasant  surprises  which  can 
befall  a  people. 

241 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

But  though  certain  concessions  were  made, 
there  is  one  point,  we  are  told,  upon  which  the 
home  government  was  sternly  inflexible.  "For 
it,"  says  Mr.  Lang,  "much  may  by  literary 
persons  be  forgiven  them."  It  telegraphed 
that  in  the  wording  of  the  treaty  it  would  under 
no  circumstances  endure  the  insertion  of  an 
adverb  between  the  preposition  to,  the  sign  of 
the  infinitive,  and  the  verb.  Mr.  Lang  feels 
justly  the  heroic  nature  of  this  act.  Much 
might  be  yielded  on  questions  in  dispute  which 
all  knew  would  ultimately  involve  expenditure 
of  money,  and  indeed  implied  at  the  time  ad- 
mission of  previous  wrong-doing.  Much  might 
further  be  yielded  in  the  case  of  certain  things 
which  the  biographer  himself  seems  to  regard  as 
points  of  honor.  Still,  on  these  minor  matters 
it  was  thought  advisable  to  give  way.  So  much 
the  more  must  our  tribute  of  admiration  be  paid 
to  the  English  government  for  remaining  im- 
movable as  the  solid  rock  when  it  came  face 
to  face  with  the  great  question  of  severing  the 
close  tie  that  binds  to  the  infinitive  the  prep- 
osition to.  "The  purity  of  the  language,"  ob- 
serves Mr.  Lang,  "they  nobly  and  courageously 
defended."  Rarely  can  history  present  a  grand- 
er spectacle  than  the  one  here  depicted  of  a 
mighty  nation  willing  to  sacrifice  treasure  and 
242 


TO   AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

blood  in  its  resolute  determination  to  resist  the 
insidious  efforts  of  another  power  to  debauch  its 
grammar. 

Of  the  serious  nature  of  this  assault  upon  the 
integrity  of  the  speech  Mr.  Lang  has  the  keenest 
appreciation.  The  biography  mentioned  above 
is  not  the  only  place  in  which  he  has  expressed 
an  opinion  similar  to  that  just  quoted.  In  1890 
he  brought  out  a  lecture  which  had  been  de- 
livered by  him  at  the  South  Kensington  Museum. 
It  was  entitled  How  to  Fail  in  Literature. 
In  the  course  of  it  he  assures  the  one  who  is 
aiming  at  such  a  desirable  result  that  he  cannot 
be  too  reckless  of  grammar.  There  is  always  a 
certain  vagueness  in  utterances  of  this  sort 
when  taken  by  themselves.  Ever  since  the 
school-master  started  on  his  journey  abroad 
there  have  been  as  many  kinds  of  grammar  as 
there  are  kinds  of  school-masters.  It  is  there- 
fore pertinent  to  inquire  whose  grammar  is 
meant.  All  of  us  keep  a  certain  assortment  of 
rules  of  our  own,  and  according  as  men  conform 
or  fail  to  conform  to  them  we  test  the  linguistic 
soundness  or  frailty  of  our  neighbors.  Fort- 
unately Mr.  Lang  comes  to  our  help  in  this 
instance,  and  illustrates  recklessness  of  grammar 
by  saying  that  one  "should  always  place  ad- 
verbs and  other  words  between  to  and  the  in- 
243 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

finitive."  He  concedes,  indeed,  that  there  are 
persons  who  are  guilty  of  this  atrocity  who  have 
attained  popularity.  But  though  these  linguis- 
tic criminals  may  have  succeeded  in  alluring  the 
public  to  buy  their  books,  they  have  failed  in 
literature;  and  it  is  about  literature  that  he  is 
speaking.  This  dictum  contributes  something 
towards  solving  what  has  always  been  a  per- 
plexing problem.  It  may  be  difficult  to  deter- 
mine exactly  what  literature  is;  but  we  are 
now  furnished  with  a  short  and  easy  method  of 
determining  what  it  is  not.  Writings  which 
contain  an  adverb  inserted  between  to  and  the 
infinitive  may  be  enjoyed  by  the  herd,  but  they 
are  not  literature. 

But  even  the  herd  have  rights  which  the  most 
superior  person  is  bound  to  respect.  It  is  no 
unreasonable  requirement  on  the  part  of  its 
members  that  they  shall  have  pointed  out  to 
them  the  precise  character  of  the  peril  which 
led  the  English  government  to  hurry  nobly  and 
courageously  to  the  defence  of  the  English 
tongue  from  the  crafty  assaults  of  the  American 
commissioners,  who,  by  the  very  fact  of  being 
Americans,  were  necessarily  engaged  in  devilish 
devices  for  corrupting  the  speech.  Let  it  be 
conceded  that  the  practice  censured  is  improper. 
But  why  is  it  improper  ?  What  is  the  nature  of 
244 


TO   AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

the  particular  havoc  wrought  to  the  language 
by  the  insertion  of  a  word  or  words  between  to 
and  the  infinitive  ?  On  this  point  the  objectors 
to  the  usage  in  question,  along  with  the  severity 
of  their  attitude,  maintain  a  silence  so  profound 
that  the  suspicion  inevitably  suggests  itself  that 
they  communicate  no  information  about  it,  they 
advance  no  arguments  against  it,  because  they 
have  neither  information  to  furnish  nor  argu- 
ments to  present.  Of  expressions  of  personal 
opinion,  however,  both  of  the  usage  and  its 
users,  the  supply  is  ample.  It  consists  mainly 
in  the  application  to  each  of  derogatory  epithets 
and  phrases.  The  practice  is  termed  a  barbarism, 
a  solecism.  It  is  held  up  as  a  glaring  example 
of  the  corruptions  which  are  invading  our  speech. 
But  the  question  comes  up,  Why  is  it  a  bar- 
barism, a  solecism,  a  corruption  ?  On  this  point 
a  scrupulous  reticence  is  maintained.  Since, 
then,  we  have  no  arguments  to  meet,  we  must 
content  ourselves  with  the  consideration  of  as- 
sertions. Of  these  the  constant  charge  of  its 
being  a  corruption  holds  the  foremost  place. 
To  readers  familiar  with  the  examples  given  in 
the  preceding  pages,  this  will  not  seem  a  very 
startling  or  crushing  objection.  It  is  the  term 
regularly  employed  to  denote  the  new  words  or 
the  new  grammatical  constructions  to  which 
245 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

he  who  dislikes  them  takes  exception.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  the  past  a  great  number  of 
expressions,  which  we  now  use  unhesitatingly, 
were  once  innovations  stigmatized  by  many 
as  scandalously  incorrect.  A  living  speech  is 
always  in  the  condition  of  growth,  and  in  lan- 
guage no  less  than  in  life  growth  implies  to  some 
extent  the  abandonment  of  the  old  and  the 
assumption  of  the  new.  Every  one  recognizes 
this  in  the  matter  of  vocabulary.  There  the 
changes  constantly  going  on — the  abandonment 
of  old  words  or  the  addition  of  new  ones — meet 
with  but  little  comment  or  criticism  outside 
of  a  few  peculiar  cases.  But  this  is  not  so  in 
grammar.  At  least  it  is  not  so  when  once  speech 
has  come  into  the  possession  of  a  great  literature. 
The  opposition  to  the  introduction  of  new  forms 
and  constructions  is  apt  then  to  assume  a  charac- 
ter of  irreconcilable  hostility.  To  some  extent 
their  feeling  is  true  even  of  the  order  of  words. 
Of  this  the  usage  in  question  is  a  signal  example. 
It  serves  conspicuously  to  bring  out  sharply  the 
distinction  with  which  changes  are  regarded  in 
a  language  devoid  of  a  literature  and  a  language 
which  has  entered  into  the  full  possession  of  one. 
The  hostile  sentiments  are  of  the  same  character 
in  both  cases;  but  in  the  former  they  exercise 
the  slightest  possible  influence. 
246 


TO    AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

For  the  first  thing  to  be  noted  is  that  the 
practice  of  joining  to  the  simple  infinitive  the 
preposition  to  was  itself  originally  a  corruption. 
In  our  early  speech  to  belonged  strictly  to  the 
gerund,    or,    as   it   was   sometimes   called,    the 
dative  case  of  the  infinitive.     Of  this  gerundial 
infinitive  we  have  still. in  our  tongue  no  small 
number  of  examples.     Locutions  like  "rooms 
to  rent"  or  "houses  to  let"  are   genuine  rep- 
resentatives of  the  original  usage,  though  the 
verb  has  been  shorn  of  the  ending  which  once 
proclaimed  its  distinctive  character.     But  with 
us    to    was    not    at    first    prefixed   to    the    in- 
finitive proper,  though  there  were  other  early 
Teutonic  tongues  in  which  such  was  the  case. 
We  still  retain  traces  of  the  primitive  linguistic 
virtue    we    once    universally    possessed.     After 
certain    common    verbs,    such    as    hid,    make^ 
see,  feel,  help,  let,  hear,  and  a  number  of  others, 
we  rarely  or  never  use  to.     The  language  in  the 
course  of  its  history  has  wavered  in  the  case  of 
these  words  between  connecting  them  with  the 
pure   or  the   prepositional  infinitive.     But  the 
former  has  become  the  preferred  construction. 
There  are,  however,  a  number  of  verbs  in  which 
the  use  of  either  depends  largely  upon  the  form 
of  the  sentence  or  upon  the  choice  of  the  writer. 
Dare,  for  instance,  was  in  earlier  times  generally 
17  247 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

followed  by  the  pure  infinitive ;  in  modern  times 
it  hesitates  between  that  and  the  prepositional. 
There  are  no  small  number  of  verbs,  indeed,  in- 
dicating some  form  of  mental  or  physical 
vision  which  are  connected  with  the  infinitive 
either  with  or  without  to.  But  this,  though  once 
true  of  see,  is  not  so  now.  It  is  no  longer  the 
normal  construction.  To  say,  "I  saw  him  to 
do  it,"  would  strike  every  one  as  unidiomatic. 
It  would  surely  kindle  the  indignation  of  those 
who  devote  all  the  leisure  at  their  command 
to  the  preservation  of  the  purity  of  the 
speech. 

Let  us  imagine,  then,  what  must  have  been 
the  feelings  of  the  purist  of  the  twelfth  century — 
for  the  purist,  like  the  poor,  we  have  always 
with  us — when  he  saw  the  preposition  to  trans- 
ferred from  the  gerund,  to  which  it  properly  be- 
longs and  prefixed  indiscriminatingly  to  the  in- 
finitive proper,  where  it  has  no  business  to  be. 
He  doubtless  foresaw  in  the  act  the  approach 
of  the  ruin  which  is  always  about  to  over- 
whelm the  tongue.  But  there  was  at  that  time 
no  government  to  hurry  to  the  rescue  of  the 
imperilled  speech.  The  powers  that  be  were 
then  talking  French  and  cared  nothing  for 
English.  There  was  no  one  of  sufficient  au- 
thority to  organize  a  successful  opposition.  In 
248 


TO    AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

consequence  the  distinction  between  the  use 
of  the  infinitive  with  to  and  without  to  broke 
down  entirely.  Accordingly,  when  in  the  four- 
teenth century  a  great  literature  began  to  be 
created,  it  found  fastened  upon  the  language 
this  monstrous  impropriety.  It  was  there. 
It  could  not  be  dislodged;  and,  further,  there 
was  no  desire  to  dislodge  it.  For  the  usual  re- 
sult had  followed.  Vice,  the  poet  tells  us,  is  so 
hideous  that  the  moment  we  see  it  we  hate  it; 
but  if  we  see  it  often  enough,  we  begin  with  en- 
during it  and  end  by  embracing  it.  So  it  has 
been  in  this  case.  Devotion  is  but  a  weak  name 
for  the  affection  now  felt  for  a  usage  which  in 
its  origin  was  a  corruption.  In  the  eyes  of 
many  the  tie  that  unites  to  and  the  infinitive 
surpasses  in  closeness  and  sanctity  the  matri- 
monial relation.  It  is  regarded  by  them  as  so 
essential  that  the  existence  without  it  of  a  verb 
in  this  mode  is  hardly  suspected.  It  is  to  this 
conception,  or  rather  lack  of  conception,  that 
we  doubtless  owe  that  most  extraordinary  speci- 
men of  grammatical  terminology  which  gives  to 
the  separation  of  the  preposition  from  the  verb 
the  name  of  "split  infinitive." 

It  is  plain  from  this  historical  survey  that  the 
prefixing  of  the  preposition  to  the  pure  infinitive 
had  in  its  origin  all  the  distinguishing  marks  of  a 
249 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

corruption.  But  it  is  by  no  means  plain  that 
the  insertion  of  an  adverb  between  to  and  the 
verb  can  be  so  designated.  The  burden  of 
proof  assuredly  lies  upon  him  who  makes  an 
assertion  to  that  effect.  For  let  us  consider 
the  abstract  propriety  of  the  usage.  The  in- 
finitive, we  all  know,  is  a  verbal  noun.  Be- 
tween other  substantives  and  the  prepositions 
governing  them  words  are  constantly  intro- 
duced. Indeed,  we  are  frequently  compelled  to 
insert  them  in  order  to  convey  our  meaning 
fully  or  properly.  That  fact  does  not  affect 
in  the  slightest  the  grammatical  construction. 
When  we  remark,  for  illustration,  that  "he  sent 
a  letter  to  the  friend  of  his  youth,'*  no  one  could 
possibly  regard  as  improper  the  insertion  of  the 
definite  article  and  possessive  pronoun  between 
the  two  prepositions  and  their  objects.  Why, 
then,  should  this  verbal  noun  enjoy  the  dis- 
tinction, denied  to  all  other  nouns,  of  hav- 
ing the  attendant  to  connected  with  it  directly 
in  all  cases?  What  dignity  hedges  it  about? 
It  is  all  the  harder  to  comprehend,  because  the 
preposition  in  the  position  indicated  has  in  the 
large  majority  of  instances  lost  its  proper  prep- 
ositional force.  Many  grammarians,  indeed, 
treat  it  in  such  cases  as  an  adverb.  Others 
have  designated  it  by  the  vague  generality  of 
250 


TO   AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

** particle."  There  is  certainly  ground  for  the 
difficulty  they  have  experienced  in  its  charac- 
terization. Prefixed  to  the  gerund,  it  meant 
something.  But  with  the  simple  infinitive  it 
merely  precedes;  it  does  not  govern.  It  has 
become  little  more  than  a  mechanical  device 
to  indicate  that  the  verb  following  is  in  the 
infinitive  mood;  and  this  it  would  indicate 
whether  joined  to  it  directly  or  separated  from 
it  by  a  word  or  words.  It  is,  however,  so  value- 
less in  itself  that  when  it  is  omitted,  as  it  reg- 
ularly is  after  certain  verbs,  its  absence  is  not 
even  felt. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  dispose  of  the  charge 
of  corruption  brought  against  this  usage.  But, 
besides  this,  we  are  told  that  it  is  an  innovation. 
This  of  itself  could  never  be  deemed  a  convincing 
argument  for  its  avoidance.  If  an  innovation 
is  a  desirable  one,  it  is  to  be  welcomed  and  not 
to  be  eschewed.  But  the  principal  difficulty 
with  this  objection  is  not  its  fallaciousness,  but 
its  falsity.  More  than  twenty  years  ago  the  late 
Fitzedward  Hall — that  terror  of  those  indulging 
in  loose  and  unfounded  assertions  about  usage 
— showed  conclusively  that  the  practice  of  in- 
serting words  between  the  preposition  and  the 
infinitive  went  back  to  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  that  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  it  has  pre- 
251 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

vailed  in  every  century  since.*  He  had  not  been 
the  only  one  to  observe  the  fact.  Very  likely 
he  was  not  the  first  to  announce  it.  But  he  was 
the  one  above  all  who  made  it  his  business  to 
establish  the  truth  of  it  by  a  wealth  of  illustra- 
tive extracts  that  nobody  had  previously  taken 
the  pains  to  bring  together.  His  essay  settled 
definitively  that  whatever  sanctity  attaches  to 
grammatical  constructions  from  age,  it  belongs 
in  an  eminent  degree  to  this  particular  one 
which  purists  are  now  often  accustomed  to 
stigmatize  as  a  modernism. 

In  the  light  of  the  facts  just  given  we  can 
therefore  feel  justified  in  looking  with  indif- 
ference upon  the  charge  of  corruption  brought 
against  this  usage.  That  is  a  distinction  which 
every  grammatical  form  must  have  enjoyed 
some  time  during  its  existence.  We  can  further 
treat  with  scant  ceremony  the  charge  of  in- 
novation. That  owes  its  origin  to  ignorance 
of  the  facts.  But  there  remains  another  and 
much  more  serious  accusation.  It  is  the  one 
intimated,  and  indeed  almost  directly  asserted, 
in  the  opening  paragraphs  of  this  essay.  It 
is  there  implied  that  the  practice  has  never  met 

* "  On  the  Separation  by  a  Word  or  Words  of  To  and 
the  Infinitive,"  in  American  Journal  of  Philology,  vol. 
iii.,  p.  17  ff. 

252 


TO    AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

with  the  sanction  of  good  writers.  If  true,  this 
would  be  a  convincing  reason  for  its  avoidance. 
A  usage  deliberately  rejected  by  all  authors  of 
excellence  is  to  be  shunned,  no  matter  if  thou- 
sands of  a  lower  class  employ  it  unhesitatingly. 
But  the  same  difficulty  attends  this  assertion 
as  attended  the  previous  one.  It  is  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  facts.  It  was  most  effective- 
ly disposed  of  in  the  paper  of  Dr.  Hall  to  which 
reference  has  just  been  made.  He  showed  that 
the  practice  had  not  only  existed  in  every  cen- 
tury from  the  fourteenth  to  the  present,  but 
that  in  every  century  it  had  been  indulged  in 
by  good  writers.  Let  us  throw  out  of  considera- 
tion the  passages  he  furnished  from  the  works 
of  authors  who,  however  highly  esteemed  in 
their  own  generation,  are  to  us  hardly  so  much 
as  a  name.  Still,  without  reckoning  these,  the 
examples  he  adduced  are  not  to  be  sneered  at 
for  their  number  any  more  than  for  the  quality 
of  those  contributing  them.  They  begin  with 
Wycliffe  in  the  fourteenth  century.  He  is 
found  employing  such  locutions — of  which  I 
have  modernized  the  orthography — as  *Ho  this 
manner  treat,"  "to  never  have  received,"  **to 
evermore  trow,"  and  others  of  a  similar  nature. 
The  following  century  was  one  not  much  given 
to  literature  of  any  sort;  but  examples  of  this 
253 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

usage  are  furnished  by  two  of  its  most  dis- 
tinguished names  —  Bishop  Pecock  and  Sir 
John  Fortescue.  One  illustration  —  in  which 
the  spelling  is  modernized — shows  how  much 
danger  there  was  that  this  liberty  might  pass 
over  into  license.  "Whenever,"  wrote  Pecock, 
in  his  Repressor,  "he  taketh  upon  him  for  to  in 
neighborly  and  brotherly  manner  corrept  ^  his 
Christian  neighbor."^  In  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury Tyndale  and  Lord  Berners  had  no  hesita- 
tion in  resorting  to  this  usage.  In  the  succeed- 
ing centuries  passages  are  cited  from  a  large 
number  of  authors,  among  whom  are  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  Pepys,  Bentley,  De  Foe,  Dr.  Johnson, 
Burke,  Southey,  Coleridge,  Lamb,  Wordsworth, 
De  Quincey,  Charles  Reade,  Macaulay,  Ruskin, 
Herbert  Spencer,  and  Leslie  Stephen.  One  writer 
who  was  specially  addicted  to  the  usage  was  the 
poet  and  divine,  John  Donne. 

It  can  hardly  be  denied  that  this  is  a  very 
respectable  gathering  of  men  who  have  failed 
in  literature.  Some  of  them  might  even  meet 
the  approval  of  the  "literary  persons,"  as  Mr. 
Lang  terms  them,   whose  hearts  swelled  with 

*  Reprove. 

^  Repressor,  Prologue,  ii.  See,  further,  in  Repressor, 
ed.  Rolls  Series,  i860,  "  for  to  first  give,"  p.  5;  "  for  to 
not  do  it,"  p.  16;  '*  for  to  the  rather  be,"  p.  32,  etc. 


TO   AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

joy  at  the  opportune  succor  brought  by  the 
British  government  to  the  imperilled  speech. 
But  all  the  well-known  authors  who  have  been 
guilty  of  this  linguistic  crime,  if  it  be  deemed 
a  crime,  are  not  included  in  Mr.  Hall's  list.  Oc- 
casional transgressors  also  are  Goldsmith,  Car- 
dinal Newman, Carlyle, Lowell, and  George  Eliot. 
It  may  be  well,  indeed,  to  give  a  few  more  illus- 
trations of  the  practice  from  writers  who  are 
generally  thought  to  have  attained  a  respectable 
position  in  English  literature: 

"To  rather  pity  and  excuse  than  blame  me." 
— Franklin^  (1738),  (Works  ed.  of  1887),  vol.i.,  p.  4. 

"Long  have  I  led  them — ^not  to  vainly  bleed." 
— Byron's  Corsair,  canto   i. 

"To  nightly  call 
Vesper,   the   beauty-crest   of  summer  weather." 
— JCeats's  Endymion,  bk.  1.  362. 

"Without  permitting  himself  to  actually  mention  the 
name." 
— Matthew  Arnold,  Essay  on  Translating  Homer,  sec.  iii. 

Even  the  great  poet  of  Scotland  has  to  be 
included  among  the  offenders.     It  was  Burns 

*  The  extracts  from  Franklin  and  Keats  I  owe  to  an 
article  communicated  to  the  Nation  of  January  19,1893, 
by  Mr.  Albert  Matthews. 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

who,  in  one  of  his  most  famous  pieces,  spoke  of 
Wallace  as  one 

"Who  dared  to  nobly  stem  tyrannic  pride."  * 

Doubtless  many  more  names  could  be  added  to 
the  catalogue  given  were  an  extended  examina- 
tion made  of  the  usage  of  the  prominent  writers 
of  our  literature  in  reference  to  this  particular 
point.  Especially  would  this  be  the  case  if  we 
directed  our  attention  to  those  now  living. 
The  application  of  the  rule  proclaimed  at  the 
beginning  of  this  essay  would  certainly  exclude 
the  works  of  all  our  present  popular  novelists 
from  being  regarded  as  literature.  But  that  is 
Mr.  Lang's  quarrel,  not  mine. 

Even  as  it  is,  such  an  array  of  imposing  au- 
thorities might  at  first  sight  be  deemed  suf- 
ficient to  settle  the  question.  But  let  us  be 
just.  A  discussion  of  this  sort  ought  not  to 
have  for  its  aim  a  one-sided  presentation  of  the 
facts.  All  that  has  been  said  has  been  truly 
said;  yet  it  is  right  to  add  that  in  one  sense 
it  is  utterly  unfair.  It  tends  to  give  the  im- 
pression that  there  has  never  been  any  genuine 
reason,  based  upon  the  practice  of  great  writers, 
for  finding  any  fault  with  the  usage  here  under 
consideration.     This  is  far  from  being  the  case. 

*  Cotter's  Saturday  Night. 

256 


TO   AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

For  while  the  custom  of  inserting  an  adverb 
between  to  and  the  infinitive  goes  back  to  the 
fourteenth  century,  and  while,  furthermore,  it 
has  been  found  in  every  century  since,  it  is  not 
tmtil  a  comparatively  recent  period  that  it  has 
been  found  frequently.  From  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century  down  to  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  the  probabilities  are  that  the  prac- 
tice has  against  it  the  weight  of  authority. 
On  this  point,  as  on  so  many  similar  ones,  there 
has  never  been  an  exhaustive  examination  of 
the  works  of  our  foremost  authors — -hardly  even 
an  approximation  to  it  in  a  single  case.  Ac- 
cordingly, all  assertions  of  this  nature  must  be 
taken  subject  to  correction.  Still,  so  far  as  in- 
vestigation, necessarily  imperfect,  justifies  the 
making  of  any  statement  whatever,  it  seems 
safe  to  assert  that  the  usage  in  question  has 
been  avoided  by  the  large  majority  of  the  great 
writers  of  our  speech.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
better  to  say  that  the  thought  of  resorting  to  it 
has  never  occurred  to  them.  Furthermore,  it 
may  be  observed  that  many  of  those  who  have 
employed  it  in  the  past  have  done  so  rarely. 
With  our  present  inadequate  knowledge  no 
hard  and  fast  rules  can  be  laid  down.  In 
some  writers  it  occurs  but  seldom;  in  others  it  is 
found  frequently.  Of  the  former  there  are  two 
257 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

striking  illustrations.  Only  a  single  instance 
was  pointed  out  in  Dr.  Johnson,  and  only  one  in 
Macaulay.  It  is,  of  course,  to  be  kept  in  mind 
that  the  employment  of  the  infinitive  without 
any  adverbial  modifier  is  almost  immeasurably 
more  frequent  than  its  employment  with  it. 
Against  a  single  example  of  the  latter  usage  in 
any  given  work  can  always  be  found  scores  of 
the  former. 

But  with  the  information  we  have,  it  is  fair 
to  assume  that  in  previous  centuries  the  great 
majority  of  the  best  writers  of  our  literature 
never  took  kindly  to  the  practice  under  dis- 
cussion. The  objection  to  it,  based  upon  this 
general  disuse,  is  therefore  one  which  cannot  be 
set  aside  lightly,  still  less  dismissed  contempt- 
uously. If  the  feelings  in  regard  to  the  prac- 
tice which  held  sway  in  the  past  continued  to 
prevail  in  the  present,  the  only  course  open  to 
him  who  is  solicitous  about  conforming  to  the 
best  accepted  standards  of  expression  would 
be  to  refrain  from  its  employment.  But  these 
feelings  no  longer  prevail.  As  constantly  hap- 
pens in  the  history  of  language,  the  old  order  of 
things  is  changing.  Usage  which  can  impose 
a  restriction  can  also  take  it  off,  if  it  so  chooses. 
That  in  this  case  it  is  choosing  to  take  it  off  is 
perfectly  plain  to  the  student  of  speech,  whose 

'58 


TO   AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

business  it  is  to  note  things  as  they  are,  and  not 
as,  in  the  eyes  of  grammarians,  they  ought  to  be. 
The  practice  of  inserting  an  adverb  between 
the  infinitive  sign  and  the  infinitive  has  steadily 
increased  during  the  last  hundred  years,  and 
goes  on  increasing  still.  Even  a  slight  examina- 
tion of  the  best  and  the  worst  contemporary 
production,  both  in  England  and  America,  will 
make  clear  that  the  universal  adoption  of  this 
usage  is  as  certain  as  anything  in  the  future 
well  can  be.  That  to  some  it  is  and  will  con- 
tinue peculiarly  offensive  there  is  no  question. 
This,  indeed,  is  a  point  upon  which  they  will 
not  neglect  to  keep  us  fully  informed.  But  the 
ranks  of  those  who  employ  the  construction  will 
be  steadily  swelled  by  new  recruits  who  will  use, 
not  only  without  scruple,  but  without  thought, 
a  method  of  expression  which  they  meet  every- 
where in  print  and  hear  everywhere  in  conversa- 
tion. The  mere  weight  of  numbers  will  event- 
ually settle  the  dispute.  The  time,  indeed,  will 
come  when  men  will  be  unaware  that  there  has 
ever  been  any  dispute  about  the  matter  at  all. 

But  until  that  time  comes  there  will  continue 
to  be  on  this  point  both  diversity  of  opinion  and 
diversity  of  usage  among  educated  men.  Some 
even  who  in  theory  approve  of  this  denounced 
word-order  and  recognize  the  inevitableness  of 
259 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

its  universal  employment  are  certain  to  be  so 
affected  by  the  linguistic  traditions  in  which 
they  have  been  brought  up  as  to  refrain  from 
resorting  to  it  in  practice.  Among  writers  at 
all  periods  there  are  those  who  shrink  from 
the  new,  even  when  they  look  upon  it  as  de- 
sirable in  itself.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
those  who  accept  without  hesitation  any  ne- 
ologism whatever,  if  they  think  that  thereby 
they  can  secure  additional  clearness  and  ex- 
pressiveness. The  varying  attitude  of  modern 
authors  towards  this  particular  usage  is  strik- 
ingly exemplified  in  the  works  of  the  two  great 
representative  poets  of  the  Victorian  era,  Tenny- 
son and  Browning.  No  one  possessing  an  atom 
of  discretion  will  venture  to  maintain  a  uni- 
versal negative  unless  he  has  carefully  gone 
over  the  whole  ground  in  dispute.  I  therefore 
content  myself  with  observing  that  if  Tennyson 
ever  inserted  an  adverb  between  to  and  the  in- 
finitive it  has  escaped  my  notice.  Such  ab- 
stention on  his  part  from  a  usage  which  in  his 
time  had  become  comparatively  common  would 
be  in  accord  with  the  conservative  tendencies  he 
generally  exhibited  in  matters  of  grammatical 
construction.  Whatever  innovations  he  made 
were  in  the  way  of  reviving  the  obsolete  or  in- 
troducing the  dialectic. 
260 


TO    AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

But  with  Browning  the  case  was  far  different. 
The  practice  so  violently  condemned  by  many, 
among  whom  are  doubtless  some  of  his  ad- 
mirers, was  one  to  which  he  was  peculiarly 
addicted.  His  fondness  for  it  is  manifested  in 
both  his  earlier  and  later  pieces.  Take,  for  illus- 
tration, the  tragedy  of  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutch- 
eon. In  that  play  we  find  "to  merely  have 
reproached,"  "to  plainly  make  the  charge," 
and  "to  only  signify."  It  is,  however,  more 
convincing  as  well  as  more  satisfactory  to  test 
Browning's  attitude  towards  the  usage  by  his 
prose.  In  poetry  the  necessities  of  the  measure 
may  sometimes  lead  an  author  to  commit  what 
he  himself  will  confess  to  be  a  fault;  but,  never- 
theless, a  fault  voluntarily  committed  in  order 
to  produce  a  striking  beauty.  But  in  prose  no 
excuse  can  be  pleaded  on  this  score.  In  that 
the  writer  who  resorts  to  any  disputed  practice 
does  so  with  his  eyes  open,  does  so  deliberately, 
not  to  say  defiantly.  Now  in  Browning's  play 
of  A  Soul's  Tragedy,  the  second  part  is  written  in 
prose.  With  the  question  of  this  usage  in  mind,  the 
following  extracts  from  this  comparatively  short 
piece  clearly  indicate  his  opinion  of  the  matter: 

"  I  had  despaired  ...  of  ever  being  able  to  rightly 
operate  on  mankind  through  such  a  deranged  machinery 
as  the  existing  modes  of  government." 
261 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

*'  It  becomes  a  truth  again,  after  all,  as  he  happens  to 
newly  consider  it,  and  view  it  in  a  different  relation 
with  the  others." 

"  I  only  desired  to  do  justice  to  the  noble  sentiments 
which  animate  you,  and  which  you  are  too  modest  to 
duly  enforce." 

In  the  whole  of  this  second  part  there  are  just 
six  instances  of  adverbs  qualifying  the  infinitive ; 
in  three  of  these,  as  we  observe,  it  precedes  it 
directly. 

Browning's  course  is  so  illustrative  of  the 
later  attitude  of  men  generally  towards  this 
usage  that  it  may  well  serve  as  an  introduction 
to  an  account  of  its  wider  modern  extension. 
Paracelsus,  his  first  acknowledged  work,  was 
published  in  1835.  I^  ^^i^  poem  appeared  sev- 
eral instances  of  the  insertion  of  an  adverb  be- 
tween the  preposition  and  the  verb.  The  fact  is 
of  itself  fairly  conclusive  evidence  of  the  head- 
way which  the  usage  had  already  gained.  There 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  this  method  of 
expression  was  then  employed  by  the  poet  un- 
consciously. It  probably  never  occurred  to  him 
at  the  time  that  any  objection  had  been  or  could 
be  made  to  the  practice.  Later  in  life,  with  the 
clamor  raised  about  it,  he  could  hardly  have 
remained  in  this  happy  ignorance;  though  if 
knowledge  came,  it  did  not  affect  his  action. 
d63 


TO    AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

At  all  events,  the  -unconsciousness  of  linguistic 
criminality,  which  he  seems  to  have  felt  at  the 
beginning  of  his  career,  was  shared  in  by  no 
small  number  of  his  contemporaries.  The  usage, 
though  long  before  in  existence,  did  not  appar- 
ently begin  to  obtrude  itself  upon  the  atten- 
tion of  the  public  until  the  latter  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Notice  was  then  occasion- 
ally taken  of  it  in  the  reviews ;  but  so  far  as  my 
own  observation  goes,  it  was  treated  as  a  sin- 
gularity and  not  denounced  as  an  enormity. 
No  fault  seems  ever  to  have  been  found  on  this 
account  with  Madame  D'Arblay  by  any  critic, 
though  she  gave  ample  occasion  for  it  by  the 
frequency  with  which  she  resorted  to  this  par- 
ticular arrangement  of  words.  Thus  the  usage, 
little  heeded,  gained  ground  steadily.  By  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  had  become 
common.  Then  the  champions  of  purity  of 
speech  suddenly  woke  up  to  the  gravity  of  the 
situation.  Following  the  time-honored  fashion 
of  locking  the  stable  door  after  the  horse  has 
been  stolen,  they  started  a  systematic  crusade 
against  the  practice.  It  has  been  kept  up  with 
little  interruption  from  that  day  to  this.  At  no 
period,  indeed,  has  the  attack  upon  the  usage 
been  so  virulent  as  during  the  past  dozen  years; 
and  at  no  period  has  its  futility  been  so  apparent. 
z8  263 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

The  purists  had  been  aroused  from  their  torpor 
too  late,  if,  indeed,  their  awakening  at  any  time 
would  have  made  any  difference  in  the  result. 

One  further  point  remains  for  consideration. 
What  are  the  reasons  which  have  led  to  the  wide 
extension  of  the  practice  in  modern  English? 
To  the  trained  student  of  the  development  of  ex- 
pression they  are  quite  obvious.  This  particular 
change  in  the  order  of  the  words  is  but  an  illus- 
tration of  that  conscious  or  unconscious  effort 
always  going  on  in  language  to  give  greater 
precision  or  strength  to  the  meaning.  The  users 
of  speech  feel,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  that 
they  can  secure  either  added  clearness  or  added 
force  by  putting  the  qualifying  adverb  directly 
before  the  verb  it  qualifies.  There  are  numer- 
ous instances  where  the  adoption  of  the  word- 
order  usually  followed  occasions  a  certain  degree 
of  ambiguity.  Scores  of  illustrations  could  be 
found  from  the  works  of  well-known  writers. 
Let  us  take,  for  example,  one  from  the  dedication 
to  Lyttleton  of  the  novel  of  Tom  Jones.  "I 
have  endeavored  strongly  to  inculcate,"  wrote 
Fielding,  **that  virtue  and  innocence  can  scarce 
ever  be  injured  but  by  indiscretion."  In  this 
sentence,  does  strongly  modify  endeavored  or 
inculcate  f  A  very  respectable  argument  can 
be  got  up  for  either  view;  and  though  in  this 
264 


TO    AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

instance  it  makes  no  particular  difference,  there 
are  always  liable  to  be  cases  where  the  matter 
is  of  importance.  Fiirthermore,  the  separation 
of  the  adverb  from  the  verb  seems  to  many  to  de- 
prive expression  in  some  measure  of  strength.  In 
the  line  previously  cited  from  Byron,  "to  vainly 
bleed  "  will  seem  to  most  men  a  more  emphatic 
way  of  stating  the  fact  than  it  would  be  by  using 
"vainly  to  bleed"  or  "to  bleed  vainly."  Simi- 
larly, "I  have  determined  to  never  speak  to 
him  again"  is  to  the  popular  apprehension  a 
more  forcible  method  of  declaring  one's  resolu- 
tion than  by  saying,  "I  have  determined  never 
to  speak  to  him  again."  When,  in  his  Elsie 
Venner,^  Holmes  refers  to  things  "which  few 
except  parents  can  be  expected  to  really  un- 
derstand," one  can  hardly  help  feeling  that 
added  strength  is  given  to  the  expression  by  in- 
serting the  adverb  between  to  and  the  infinitive. 
The  inherent  right  or  wrong  of  the  apprehension 
does  not  come  under  consideration,  nor  how  men 
ought  to  feel  about  the  matter.  What  they  do 
feel  has  been  the  all-controlling  influence  which 
induces  them  in  many  instances  to  change  the 
order  of  the  words,  and  has  made  them  un- 
satisfied even  with  placing  the  adverb  after  the 

*  Vol.  ii.,  chap,  xix.,  p.  52  (ed.  of  1861). 
265 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

infinitive.     This  latter,   too,   is  in   some   cases 
impossible. 

It  is  apparently  in  this  way  only  that  the 
single  instance,  so  far  recorded,  of  Macaulay's 
resort  to  this  method  of  expression  can  be  ex- 
plained. It  occurs  in  the  essay  on  Lord  Holland. 
That  nobleman  had  died  in  1840,  and  Macaulay's 
article  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for 
July  of  the  following  year.  As  it  was  originally 
published  in  that  periodical,  one  of  the  para- 
graphs began  with  the  following  sentence,  "In 
order  fully  to  appreciate  the  character  of  Lord 
Holland,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  into  the  his- 
tory of  his  family."  In  1843  Macaulay  brought 
out  an  edition  of  his  essays  carefully  revised. 
In  that  the  beginning  of  the  sentence  just 
quoted  had  been  changed  so  as  to  read,  '"In 
order  to  fully  appreciate  the  character  of  Lord 
Holland."  This  is  the  form  which  was  retained 
in  subsequent  editions.  There  seems  no  other 
reason  to  give  for  the  alteration  than  the  be- 
lief on  the  part  of  the  essayist  that  thereby  he 
imparted  greater  force  to  the  assertion.  For 
Macaulay  was  never  careless  about  his  expres- 
sion. What  he  did  he  did  designedly.  Accord- 
ingly, he  must  have  believed  that  in  thus  depart- 
ing from  his  usual  practice  he  had  secured  the 
additional  emphasis  for  which  he  was  striving. 
a66 


TO    AND    THE    INFINITIVE 

Such  is  a  brief  outline  of  the  fortunes  of  this 
so-called  corruption.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
say  that  throughout  this  essay  the  term  cor- 
ruption has  been  used,  not  in  the  proper  sense 
of  the  word,  but  in  that  given  to  it  by  those 
who  apply  it  to  all  transformations  and  changes 
going  on  in  language  which  have  not  the  good- 
fortune  to  meet  with  their  personal  approval. 
It  is  a  duty  as  well  as  a  right  on  the  part  of  such 
to  protest  against  innovations  which  seem  to 
them  objectionable.  But  they  cannot  afford  to 
make  the  mistake  of  fancying  that  dogmatic 
denunciation  can  ever  supply  the  place  of  argu- 
ment. The  mere  opinions  of  individuals,  no 
matter  how  eminent,  will  never  long  carry  much 
weight  with  the  users  of  speech.  If  men  come 
seriously  to  believe  that  ambiguity  can  be  lessen- 
ed or  emphasis  increased  by  changing  the  order 
of  words  in  any  given  phrase,  we  may  be  sure 
that  in  time  the  habit  of  so  doing  will  be  adopted 
whenever  it  is  deemed  desirable.  It  is  clear 
that  most  of  those  who  now  refrain  from  the 
practice  under  discussion  no  longer  do  so  in- 
stinctively, as  was  once  the  case,  but  rather 
under  compulsion.  They  refrain,  not  because 
they  feel  that  it  is  unnatural  or  unidiomatic, 
but  because  they  have  been  told  that  it  is  im- 
proper. Artificial  bulwarks  of  this  sort  will 
267 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

never  hold  back  long  a  general  movement  of 
speech.  If  the  present  attitude  of  men  towards 
this  particular  usage  continues  —  and  of  this 
there  seems  every  likelihood — ^they  can  be  relied 
upon  to  brush  aside  the  objections  of  purists  as 
summarily  and  as  effectively  as  they  have  done 
in  the  case  of  the  passive  form  is  being.  If  they 
proceed  so  to  do,  no  one  need  feel  the  slightest 
anxiety  as  to  the  injurious  consequences  which 
will  befall  the  English  tongue.  It  is  not  by 
agencies  of  this  nature  that  the  real  corruption 
of  speech  is  brought  about.  Were  such  the  c::se, 
our  language  would  have  been  already  ruined 
any  number  of  times  and  at  any  number  of 
periods. 


IX 


HAD    LIEFER,    HAD     RATHER,    AND     HAD    BETTER, 
WITH   THE    INFINITIVE 

AT  the  present  day  one  occasionally  meets  in 
iV  newspapers  and  even  in  books  such  an  ex- 
pression as  **he  would  better  do  so  and  so."  It 
is  asserted,  indeed,  that  the  use  of  the  construc- 
tion has  been  enjoined  in  schools,  though  this  is 
something  hard  to  believe.  It  is,  of  course,  not 
absolutely  impossible  that  a  corruption  of  this 
sort  may  come  in  time  to  be  accepted  as  proper. 
The  language  has  more  than  once  accomplished 
feats  full  as  difficult.  Still  the  uselessness  of 
the  locution  as  well  as  its  unidiomatic  and 
ungrammatical  character  ought  to  stand,  and 
doubtless  will  stand,  effectually  in  the  way  of 
any  such  result.  A  sort  of  plea  could  be  got 
up  in  favor  of  **he  should  better,"  though  even 
for  that  phrase  there  would  be  no  necessity. 
But  what  the  one  who  employs  **he  would  better 
do,"  really  says — going  on  the  assumption  that 
he  says  anything — is  that  he  would  do  such  or 
269 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

such  a  thing  better  than  he  would  do  something 
else.  What  he  is  trying  to  say  is  that  it  would 
be  better  for  him  to  do  such  or  such  a  thing 
instead  of  something  else. 

A  locution  of  this  sort  is  the  invention  of  the 
purists  in  speech, — who,  it  is  quite  needless  to 
remark,  are  beings  essentially  distinct  from  the 
pure  in  speech.  In  every  period  are  to  be  found 
persons  who  can  never  be  sincerely  happy  unless 
they  can  parse  every  word  of  every  expression 
they  use.  To  their  eyes  had  better  do  presents 
insuperable  difficulties.  It  matters  nothing  that 
they  constantly  come  across  it,  or  locutions  like 
it,  in  the  writings  of  great  authors — ^never  so 
often,  indeed,  as  of  late  years.  This  fact  satis- 
fies the  ordinary  man ;  it  does  not  satisfy  them. 
Before  they  are  willing  to  accept  authority  for 
any  idiom,  it  must  be  reconciled  to  what  they 
choose  to  call  their  reason.  If  in  this  they  fail, 
they  are  ready  to  sacrifice  sense  to  any  method 
of  expression  which  they  fancy  to  be  consistent 
with  grammar.  Hence  has  originated  the  sub- 
stitution of  would  better  for  had  better. 

This  latter  is  not  the  only  locution  of  the  sort 
which  has  fallen  under  censure.  There  is  a 
similar  one  contained  in  a  favorite  text  of  the 
Bible  which  has  excited  as  much  grammatical 
heart-burning  as  various  other  texts  of  that 
270 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

book  have  theological.  "  I  had  rather  be  a  door- 
keeper in  the  house  of  my  God,  than  to  dwell 
in  the  tents  of  wickedness,"  says  the  Psalmist. 
It  is  fair  to  observe  in  behalf  of  those  who  take 
exception  to  the  idiom  found  here  that  the 
explanation  of  it  does  not  lie  on  the  surface. 
It  presents  a  very  genuine  difficulty  which  has 
perplexed  generations  of  men.  The  hostility 
to  it  is  in  consequence  no  new  thing.  To  many 
lexicographers  and  grammarians  in  the  past  it 
has  been  both  a  stumbling-block  and  an  offence. 
Further,  though  its  nature  had  been  previously 
pointed  out,  no  exhaustive  study  of  its  exact 
character  and  early  history  was  ever  made  until 
about  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Then  the 
task  was  accomplished  by  Fitzedward  Hall/ 
who  so  effectually  demolished  the  myths  pertain- 
ing to  the  junction  of  the  particle  to  with  the 
infinitive.  Accordingly,  in  telling  the  story  of 
these  locutions,  much  that  is  said  here  is  based 
primarily  upon  the  results  of  his  investigations 
and  upon  the  materials  he  collected. 

There  have  existed  and  still  exist  in  our  tongue 
three  idioms  of  essentially  the  same  character. 
They  are  had  liefer  (or  liever)^  had  rather,  and 

*  On  the  origin  of  "Had  Rather  Go"  and  analogous 
or  apparently  analogous  locutions,  in  American  Journal 
of  Philology,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  281  ff . 
271 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

had  better.  The  order  in  which  they  have  been 
mentioned  is  the  order  in  which  they  came  into 
general  use.  At  the  outset  it  may  be  said  that 
none  of  them  goes  back  to  the  earliest  period  of 
the  speech.  At  that  time  the  regular  expression 
for  the  first  of  these  locutions  which  presented 
itself  was  made  up  of  the  comparative  of  lief, 
'dear,'  the  dative  of  the  personal  pronoun, 
and  the  preterite  subjunctive  of  the  substantive 
verb.  Instead  of  I  had  liefer,  men  said  me  were 
liefer — that  is,  *it  would  be  dearer  to  me.'  The 
words  are  here  modernized;  nor  was  this  the 
order  in  which  they  always  appeared;  but  essen- 
tially it  is  the  original  idiom. 

It  was  towards  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury that  had  liefer  followed  by  a  verb  made 
its  first  recorded  appearance  in  the  language. 
Once  established  it  came  rapidly  into  extensive 
use.  No  reader  of  Chaucer  needs  to  be  told  how 
frequently  it  is  to  be  met  in  his  pages.  Nor  is 
his  practice  in  employing  it  different  from  that 
of  his  contemporaries  and  immediate  successors. 
For  about  two  hundred  years  this  particular 
locution  may  be  said  to  have  been  fully  rec- 
ognized, not  merely  in  colloquial  speech,  but  in 
literature  of  all  sorts.  But  about  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century  a  rival  idiom  sprang  up. 
It  conveyed  the  same  idea  with  the  use  of  a 
27a 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

different  word.  This  was  had  rather.  The  new- 
comer did  not  expel  had  liefer  speedily.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  it  never  has  expelled  it  entirely. 
But  it  steadily  encroached  upon  the  frequency 
of  its  employment.  Though  the  two  expressions 
lasted  side  by  side  for  at  least  a  century,  the  later 
form  not  only  pushed  gradually  the  earlier  one 
from  its  supremacy,  but  finally  drove  it  almost 
entirely  from  literary  use.  The  practice  of 
Shakespeare  may  be  said  to  indicate  the  fortime 
which  in  his  time  had  overtaken  the  supplanted 
and  supplanting  idioms.  Had  rather  is  found  in 
his  plays  scores  of  times,  had  liefer  not  once. 

Practically,  therefore,  after  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury this  particular  locution  had  died  out  of 
the  language  of  literature.  It  can,  indeed,  be 
found  employed  in  it  occasionally.  Even  in  our 
own  day  it  is  not  altogether  disused.  Two  or 
three  writers  of  eminence  have  at  times  resorted 
to  it;  but  as  a  general  rule,  when  it  now  occurs, 
it  is  either  put  in  the  mouths  of  the  uneducated 
or  is  the  conscious  adoption  of  an  archaism.  In 
this  latter  respect  the  effort  made  by  Tennyson 
to  revive  the  idiom  is  worthy  of  mention.  As 
early  as  1842  he  had  made  use  of  the  archaic 
combination  of  lief  and  dear  in  the  Morte 
d' Arthur ;  but  it  was  not  until  his  later  Avritings 
that  he  introduced  had  liefer.     The  first  instance 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

of  its  occurrence  is  in  the  Idyls  of  the  King, 
which  came  out  in  1859;  after  that  it  is  found 
not  infrequently  in  his  productions.  Twice  does 
Enid  employ  it  in  the  poem  which  goes  under 
her  name.  Her  first  use  of  it  is  where  she  says 
that,  compared  with  having  her  lord  suffer 
shame  through  his  love  to  her, 

"Far  liever  had  I  gird  his  harness  on  him." 

But  Tennyson's  course  seems,  up  to  this  time, 
to  have  found  few  imitators.  Decay  has  over- 
taken the  expression.  There  has  probably  never 
been  a  period  in  which  it  has  not  been  more  or 
less  employed  in  the  colloquial  speech;  but  in 
literature  its  day  has  long  been  gone. 

Had  rather  is  therefore  the  lineal  successor  of 
had  liefer,  or,  strictly  speaking,  its  supplanter. 
The  meaning  of  both  is  essentially  the  same. 
But  in  the  sixteenth  century  there  began  to 
be  employed  an  analogous,  though  not  a  rival, 
locution.  This  was  had  better.  An  example  of 
it  has  been  cited  from  a  poem  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  but  even  if  no  doubt  exists  of  its  ap- 
pearance then,  it  did  not  come  into  general  use 
until  a  good  deal  later.  Like  liejer,  but  unlike 
rather y  better  had  been  originall}^  employed  with 
the  pronoun  and  the  substantive  verb.  Me 
were  better — that  is,  'it  would  be  better  for  me' 
«74 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

— was  the  method  of  expression  which  gradually 
gave  way  to  I  had  better.  It  may  be  remarked  in 
passing  that  a  confusion  of  these  constructions 
sprang  up  in  the  Elizabethan  period  and  became 
somewhat  prevalent.  The  dative  with  the  sub- 
stantive verb  was  sometimes  replaced  by  the 
nominative.  Hence  we  find  such  expressions  as 
Viola's  in  Twelfth  Night,  "She  were  better  love 
a  dream."  It  was  had  liefer,  however,  which 
pretty  certainly  furnished  the  model  upon  which 
had  better  was  formed.  But  the  latter  was  ap- 
parently slow  in  coming  into  any  wide  general 
use.  It  could  not  encroach  upon  the  employ- 
ment of  had  rather,  for  it  was  distinct  in  mean- 
ing; but  for  some  reason  there  seems  to  have 
been  for  a  long  while  a  reluctance  to  resort  to  it. 
In  our  version  of  the  Bible  it  does  not  occur. 
In  Shakespeare  it  is  found  but  once  followed  by 
a  verb,  and  that  instance  belongs  to  a  part  of 
Henry  VIII.  which  is  now  usually  ascribed  to 
Fletcher. 

This  condition  of  things  seems  to  have  con- 
tinued during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries.  Had  better,  though  employed,  was, 
comparatively  speaking,  not  much  employed; 
at  least  this  is  true  if  we  confine  our  considera- 
tion to  the  writings  of  authors  of  the  first  rank. 
But  in  the  nineteenth  century  all  this  was 
275 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

changed.  The  idiom  came  to  be  constantly 
used  in  literature,  while  the  analogous  had  rather ^ 
though  still  retaining  its  full  hold  upon  collo- 
quial speech,  began  to  appear  less  frequently  in 
written.  The  change  which  has  taken  place  in 
the  employment  of  the  two  idioms  may  be  in- 
dicated by  the  result  of  an  examination  of  rep- 
resentative novels  of  two  of  the  greatest  novel- 
ists of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries 
respectively.  The  first  is  Fielding's  Tom  Jones. 
That  work  appeared  in  1749.  In  it  had  rather 
occurs  just  fifteen  times.^  It  is  used  indifferent- 
ly by  characters  of  every  station,  including  the 
author  himself  when  speaking  in  his  own  person. 
On  the  other  hand,  had  better  is  used  but  twice.^ 
Nearly  a  hundred  years  later — in  1848 — Thack- 
eray's Vanity  Fair  was  published  in  book  form. 
In  that  work  had  better  occurs  twenty  -  three 
times,  while  had  rather  occurs  only  once,  if  we 
leave  out  of  account  locutions  beginning  with 
contracted  and  therefore  doubtful  forms  like 
Vd.  The  situation  had  been  completely  re- 
versed. It  may  further  be  added  that  in  nei- 
ther of  these  novels,  largely  representing,   as 

^  Bk.  i.,  chap,  iii.;  bk.  vi.,  chaps,  ii.  (twice),  vii.;  bk. 
vii.,  chap,  xiii,;  bk.  viii.,  chaps,  ii.,  xi.,  xv. ;  bk.  xi.,  chap, 
vii.;  bk.  xii.,  chap.  X.;  bk.  xiii.,  chap,  ii.;  bk.  xv.,  chap, 
xi.;  bk.  xvi.,  chaps,  ii.,  v.;  bk.  xvii.,  chap.  i. 

'  Bk.  vi.,  chap,  ix.;  bk.  vii.,  chap.  xii. 

276 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

they  do,  colloquial  usage,  does  had  liefer  appear 
at  all ;  though  in  Tom  Jones  this  idiom  with  the 
double  comparative — giving  us  had  lieferer — is 
in  one  instance  put  in  the  mouth  of  an  illiterate 
person. 

Facts  of  this  sort  do  not  justify  the  forma- 
tion of  sweeping  generalizations.  They  represent 
nothing  more  than  an  incomplete  and  necessari- 
ly one-sided  investigation.  In  matters  of  usage, 
too,  the  personal  equation  always  has  to  be 
considered.  There  will  consequently  be  found 
in  individual  writers  a  condition  of  things  which 
seem  to  bear  directly  against  the  truth  of  the 
general  conclusions  deduced.  In  Holmes's  Auto- 
crat of  the  Breakfast-Table,  for  instance,  had 
rather  is  found  seven  times, ^  and  had  better 
but  three.^  Inferences,  therefore,  based  upon 
what  must  necessarily  be  imperfect  investiga- 
tion must  always  be  given  subject  to  correction. 
Yet  it  is  not  likely  that  fuller  examination  would 
yield  results  essentially  different.  Certainly  all 
the  evidence  which  has  so  far  ever  been  adduced 
points  to  the  conclusion  that  a  growing  prefer- 
ence has  been  exhibited  in  literature  for  had 
better  over  had  rather.  In  Jane  Austen's  Pride 
and  Prejudice,  for  instance,  the  former  occurs 

*  Ed.  of  1900,  pp.  15,  90,  152,  208,  225,  266,  272. 
2  Ibid.,  pp.  45,  90,  160. 

277 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

twelve  times,  the  latter  but  four.  Take,  as  a 
further  illustration  of  the  prevalence  of  the  feel- 
ing, Disraeli's  novel  of  Sybil.  This  appeared 
in  1845.  I^  i^  "the  former  locution  is  found 
thirteen  times,  the  latter  not  once. 

It  is  no  difficult  matter  to  explain  the  pres- 
ent comparative  infrequency  in  literature  of  had 
rather,  once  so  much  more  common  than  had 
better.  The  place  of  the  former  can  be  easily 
taken  by  would  rather,  in  which  rather  is  dis- 
tinctly an  adverb.  This  latter  locution  had  ap- 
peared in  the  language  as  early  at  least  as  the 
twelfth  century.  It  consequently  preceded  had 
rather;  furthermore,  it  had  always  existed  along- 
side of  it,  and  had  generally  been  interchange- 
able with  it.  If  less  idiomatic,  it  served  the  pur- 
pose well  enough  to  be  adopted  by  the  timid 
as  soon  as  the  outcry  against  the  assumed  un- 
grammatical  character  of  the  almost  synony- 
mous expression  made  itself  distinctly  notice- 
able. This  first  began  to  be  heard  in  the  second 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  As  long  ago  as 
1768  the  locution  was  made  the  subject  of  a 
portion  of  a  special  treatise.^     It  was  designated 

*  Two  Grammatical  Essays,  first,  on  a  Barbarism  in 

the  English  Language  in  a  Letter  to  Dr.  S ;  second, 

on    the    Usefulness    and    Necessity    of    Grammatical 
Knowledge,  in  order  to  a  right  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures.     London,  1768. 
378 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

in  the  very  title  of  the  work  as  a  barbarism. 
Not  unnaturally  the  spurious  account  of  the  or- 
igin of  the  locution,  which  was  then  becoming 
prevalent,  was  introduced  to  play  its  part.  Ac- 
cording to  this,  as  has  already  been  intimated, 
I  would,  for  the  sake  of  brevity  in  speaking  and 
writing,  had  been  contracted  into  Fd.  This 
in  turn  had  been  expanded  by  ignorant  au- 
thors, or  perhaps  printers,  into  /  had.  As  was 
perhaps  to  be  expected,  the  denouncer  of  this 
so-called  barbarism  left  much  to  be  desired  in 
his  own  expression  in  order  to  make  it  conform 
to  correct  usage.  It  was  a  subject  of  ironical 
regret  with  some  of  the  reviewers  that  those 
who  are  able  and  willing  to  give  our  language 
a  purity  it  has  not  are  apparently  unable  to 
succeed  in  writing  it  with  the  purity  it  has. 

Would  rather  could  at  any  time  be  substituted 
for  had  rather  with  propriety.  But  the  case  is 
different  with  had  better.  In  no  such  easy  way 
could  men  escape  from  the  employment  of  that 
locution.  Would  rather  says,  even  if  sometimes 
imperfectly,  just  what  it  means;  would  better 
is  forced  to  have  a  sense  imposed  upon  it  in 
order  to  mean  anything  at  all.  The  use  of  it 
is  so  distinctly  repugnant  to  our  idiom,  not 
to  call  it  absolutely  improper,  that,  when  met 
with,  it  is  apt  to  provoke  a  cry  of  pain  from  him 

X9  279 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

who  has  been  nurtured  upon  the  great  classics 
of  our  literature.  It  cannot  be  stated  positively 
where  and  when  it  came  first  to  be  employed; 
but  the  vogue  it  has  now,  such  as  it  is,  it  owes 
largely  to  the  influence  and  example  of  Walter 
Savage  Landor.  In  a  previous  essay  ^  the  reason 
has  been  given  why  Browning  in  one  passage 
substituted  would  better  for  the  classical  had 
better.  It  was  in  deference,  he  said,  to  the 
"magisterial  authority"  of  Landor.  There  was 
a  peculiar  innocence  in  the  poet's  estimate  of 
the  value  of  his  friend's  linguistic  utterances. 
In  questions  of  usage  Landor,  indeed,  was  the 
most  untrustworthy  of  guides,  but  for  a  reason 
quite  different  from  what  might  be  supposed. 
He  occasionally  made  a  correct  statement. 
Hence  the  uninstructed  reader  can  never  have 
the  desirable  assurance  that  everything  he  as- 
serts is  always  wrong  even  if  it  be  so  generally. 
We  may  entertain  what  view  we  choose  of 
Landor's  style;  but  there  can  hardly  be  two 
opinions,  among  those  who  have  studied  the 
subject,  as  to  the  value  of  his  pronouncements 
upon  points  of  usage.  In  his  observations 
upon  language  no  man  of  equal  abilities  ever 
surpassed  him  in  the  combination  of  limited 
knowledge  of  the  facts  with  unlimited  wrong- 
^  See  page  150. 
280 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

headedness  in  drawing  conclusions  from  them. 
Naturally  he  adopted  and  repeated  the  entirely 
erroneous  account  just  given  of  the  origin  of 
had  better.  Nor  did  he  stop  with  imparting 
misinformation.  Landor  had  always  the  cour- 
age of  his  perversities.  In  his  devotion  to  what 
he  fancied  correctness  he  was  capable  of  writing 
such  a  sentence  as  the  following,  **  Those  who 
removed  it  were  little  aware  that  they  had  better 
left  it."^  All  sorts  of  linguistic  atrocities  have 
been  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  grammar;  but 
perhaps  none  can  be  found  that  equals  this  in 
defiance  of  the  English  idiom. 

As  it  was  always  practicable  to  substitute 
would  rather  for  had  rather,  the  use  of  the  latter 
tended  to  become  less  frequent  after  the  mid- 
dle of  the  eighteenth  century.  Such  as  did  not 
feel  sure  of  their  ground  took  this  easy  method 
of  escape.  There  are  those,  in  consequence,  who 
think  that  had  rather  is  destined  to  undergo  the 
same  fate  as  had  liefer;  that  while  it  will  continue 
to  be  heard  in  colloquial  speech,  it  will  disappear 
from  literary.  But  this  is  altogether  improb- 
able. There  may  be  variation  in  the  extent  of 
the  employment  of  the  locution  at  particular 
times  and  by  particular  persons.     That  is  some- 

^  I  give  this  on  the   authority  of  Fitzedward  Hall. 
I  have  not  myself  verified  the  passage. 
281 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

thing,  however,  quite  distinct  from  its  abandon- 
ment. Had  liefer  had  died  out  of  general  lit- 
erary use  before  literature  had  had  full  oppor- 
tunity to  exert  its  conserving  influence.  For 
the  great  agency  which  prevents  the  decay  and 
death  of  words  and  idioms  is  their  employment 
by  a  large  number  of  writers  of  the  highest  grade. 
Such  authors  always  continue  in  fashion;  they 
are  always  read  and  studied  and  imitated.  Hence 
they  give  enduring  vitality  to  the  forms  of  ex- 
pression which  appear  in  their  productions.  In 
the  great  writers  of  the  past  had  rather  is  found 
almost  universally;  in  some  of  them  it  is  found 
very  frequently.  Their  employment  of  the  lo- 
cution is  certain  in  consequence  to  keep  it  alive ; 
its  concurrent  employment  in  the  colloquial 
speech  will  keep  it  vigorous.  The  most  deter- 
mined efforts  directed  against  it  for  a  century 
and  a  half  have  failed  to  displace  it  from  the 
usage  of  the  educated.  With  the  fuller  knowl- 
edge now  possessed  of  its  origin  and  character, 
these  efforts  are  sure  in  process  of  time  to  be 
abandoned  altogether.  It  accordingly  remains 
now  to  explain  its  exact  nature  and  to  recount 
some  of  the  various  views  entertained  about  it. 
It  is  clear  from  what  has  been  said  that  during 
the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies men  were  in  the  habit  of  using  had  rather ^ 
283 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

and  to  a  less  extent  had  better,  with  no  thought 
at  all  of  the  peculiar  character  of  these  locutions. 
They  accepted  them,  as  they  did  many  other 
idioms,  without  seeking  to  understand  them. 
It  was  enough  for  them  that  they  found  them 
in  good  use  at  the  time,  or  saw  that  they  had 
been  in  good  use  in  the  past.  But  there  always 
comes  a  period  in  the  history  of  a  cultivated 
language  when  it  begins  to  be  studied  for  itself 
as  well  as  for  what  it  contains.  The  vehicle  is 
to  some  of  full  as  much  importance  as  the 
material  it  conveys.  Points  of  linguistic  pro- 
priety, which  at  all  times  have  interest  for  the 
few,  begin  now  to  be  discussed  by  the  many. 
In  English  this  feeling  first  made  itself  dis- 
tinctly manifest  in  the  second  half  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  Grammars  and  dictionaries  then 
took  up  to  some  extent  the  question  of  usage. 
Manuals  made  their  appearance  instructing  us 
as  to  the  expressions  we  ought  to  avoid.  It  was 
inevitable  that  an  idiom  of  the  peculiar  nature 
of  had  rather  should  attract  attention.  It  was 
not  understood  in  the  least;  and  idioms  not 
understood,  like  men  in  the  same  situation,  are 
sure  to  be  misunderstood.  At  the  outset,  ac- 
cordingly, to  mention  this  particular  locution 
was  usually  to  misrepresent  it  and  to  censure  it. 
The  analogous  expression  had  liefer  had  died  out 
283 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

of  the  language  of  literature ;  had  better  was  com- 
paratively little  employed.  The  brunt  of  the 
attack  fell  consequently  upon  had  rather. 

There  are  two  persons  who  are  deserving  of 
particular  mention  in  connection  with  the  ear- 
ly criticism  of  this  idiom.  Attention  is  due  to 
the  one  because  of  his  influence  upon  English 
lexicography,  and  to  the  other  because  of  his  in- 
fluence over  later  grammarians.  It  was  in  1755 
that  Dr.  Johnson  brought  out  the  dictionary 
which  goes  under  his  name.  No  previous  work 
of  the  nature,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  contained 
even  an  allusion  to  the  locution  under  discussion. 
Their  compilers  either  did  not  have  their  atten- 
tion called  to  it  or  chose  to  refrain  from  com- 
mitting themselves  upon  a  matter  which  they 
were  unable  to  comprehend.  It  is  certainly  not 
referred  to  in  the  dictionaries  of  either  Dyche  or 
Bailey,  the  two  works  of  this  kind  which  were 
in  widest  use  before  the  appearance  of  Johnson's. 
It  would  have  been  no  injury  either  to  the  truth 
or  to  his  own  reputation  had  Johnson  preserved 
the  same  reticence  as  his  predecessors.  On  the 
subject  he  had  two  utterances,  one  under  have, 
and  the  other  under  rather.  The  fifth  definition 
which  he  gave  of  the  verb  was  'to  wish,  to  de- 
sire in  a  lax  sense.'  Two  passages  were  cited 
to  exemplify  the  meaning,  and  of  these  one  was 
284 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

the  text  of  the  Psalms  previously  quoted.  Under 
rather  he  defined  to  have  rather  as  meaning  'to 
desire  in  preference.'  "This  is,  I  think,"  was 
his  added  comment,  "a  barbarous  expression  of 
late  intrusion  into  our  language,  for  which  it  is 
better  to  say  will  rather."  In  these  remarks 
Johnson  not  only  showed  ignorance  —  which, 
considering  the  time  he  wrote,  was  pardonable 
— but  he  displayed  obtuseness,  which  is  not  a 
characteristic  he  was  wont  to  exhibit.  Have 
rather,  in  the  sense  of  'prefer,'  prevailed  to  some 
extent  for  a  considerable  period,  but  it  had 
practicall}'-  died  out  by  the  beginning  of  the 
Elizabethan  era.  So  far  from  being  of  late  in- 
trusion into  the  language,  it  had  made  its  ap- 
pearance in  it  by  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  Still,  Johnson  was  addressing  a  gen- 
eration even  more  unintelligent  in  this  matter 
than  himself.  It  is  therefore  not  particularly 
surprising  that  these  almost  ridiculous  state- 
ments should  have  been  adopted  by  several 
later  lexicographers.  A  quarter  of  a  centtiry 
afterwards,  Sheridan,  for  instance,  improved  in 
his  dictionary  upon  the  original  error,  and  in- 
forms us  that  had  rather — not  have  rather,  in 
which  the  verb  is  in  the  indicative — is  "  a  bad 
expression."  It  should  be,  he  said,  will  rather. 
The  other  writer  alluded  to  was  Robert  Lowth, 
285 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

who  died  in  1787  as  bishop  of  London.  In 
1762  he  brought  out  a  small  work  entitled  A 
Short  Introduction  to  English  Grammar.  Lowth 
was  a  man  of  ability  and  an  eminent  scholar  in 
many  fields;  though  it  is  well  to  remark  here 
that  scholarship  in  our  tongue,  as  we  under- 
stand it,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  existed  in 
his  day.  Accordingly,  while  he  knew  a  great 
deal  more  than  his  predecessors  of  the  historical 
development  of  our  grammatical  forms,  what  he 
knew  was  not  itself  a  very  great  deal.  The 
consequence  was  that  though  he  corrected  some 
misstatements  and  removed  some  misappre- 
hensions, he  added  both  misapprehensions  and 
misstatements  of  his  own.  It  is  a  question, 
indeed,  whether  in  the  long-run  he  did  not  do 
more  harm  than  good.  For  Lowth  was  perhaps 
the  first  person,  and  certainly  the  first  person 
of  any  recognized  learning  and  ability,  who  de- 
voted himself  to  the  practice  of  pointing  out 
mistakes,  or  supposed  mistakes,  of  usage  in 
the  writings  of  eminent  authors.  Undoubtedly 
there  is  some  justification  for  the  course.  Every 
great  writer  is  liable,  though  under  ordinary 
conditions  not  very  likely,  to  commit  errors. 
But  the  difficulty  with  those  who  assume  the 
office  of  critic  is  that  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
the  so-called  errors  they  fancy  they  find  are  not 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

errors  of  the  author  in  violating  good  usage,  but 
errors  of  the  censor  arising  from  lack  of  knowl- 
edge of  what  good  usage  actually  is. 

Lowth  was  no  exception  to  this  general  rule. 
In  the  original  edition  of  1762  he  had  nothing  to 
say  of  the  particular  locution  here  under  con- 
sideration. But  in  a  later  one  he  took  notice 
of  it.  He  found  it  by  no  means  reducible  to  any 
grammatical  construction.  He  then  proceeded 
to  promulgate  the  theory  already  mentioned, 
that  its  origin  was  due  to  a  contraction  of  I 
would  into  Fd,  and  the  erroneous  expansion  of 
this  last  into  /  had.  I^owth  was  very  likely 
not  the  person  who  was  originally  responsible 
for  this  precious  piece  of  etymology,  but  his 
name  and  influence  caused  the  wide  acceptance 
of  the  belief  that  in  this  particular  way  the 
corruption  had  crept  into  the  language.  Al- 
though there  was  for  it  not  the  slightest  justi- 
fication in  fact,  it  became  during  a  good  share 
of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  a 
common,  not  to  say  the  common,  explanation 
of  the  origin  of  the  locution.  From  Lowth's 
day  down  to  Landor's  it  was  fairly  certain  to 
be  dragged  into  the  discussion  of  the  idiom  by 
every  one  who  objected  to  it.  In  truth,  it  was 
for  so  long  time  an  accepted  solution  of  the  dif- 
ficulty the  expression  presented  that  it  is  not  un- 
}?37 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

likely  that  it  may  be  found  lingering  still  in  some 
quarters,  in  spite  of  the  not  infrequent  exposure 
which  has  been  made  of  its  falsity.  The  state  of 
mind  which  led  to  its  adoption  is  indicated  in 
the  remark  with  which  Webster  accompanied 
his  discussion  of  the  idiom  in  the  edition  of 
his  Dictionary  that  appeared  in  1828.  "Is  not 
this  phrase,"  said  he  under  have,  "a  corrup- 
tion of  would  rather?*'  By  the  time  he  had 
reached  the  latter  part  of  the  alphabet  he  felt 
fairly  well  able  to  answer  his  own  question.  He 
continued,  indeed,  to  express  himself  hypothet- 
ically  about  the  origin  of  the  idiom,  but  about 
the  use  of  it  he  had  now  reached  very  positive 
conclusions.  "The  phrase,"  he  wrote  under 
rather,  "may  have  been  originally  I'd  rather,  for 
/  would  rather,  and  the  construction  afterward 
mistaken  for  had.  Correct  speakers  and  writers 
generally  use  would  in  all  such  phrases."  Ob- 
servations of  this  character  have  long  disappeared 
from  Webster's  Dictionary;  but  their  occurrence 
in  the  earlier  editions  spread  far  and  wide  in 
this  country  the  mythical  belief  about  the  origin 
of  this  locution  and  the  impropriety  of  its  use. 
Both  of  these  views  received,  also,  a  quasi-sup- 
port  from  Worcester. 

In  England,  however,  grammarians  and  lexi- 
cographers were,  as  a  general  rule,  somewhat 
288 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

chary  about  committing  themselves  on  the 
question  of  the  propriety  of  the  locution.  This 
is  true  in  particular  of  the  early  ones.  Some 
of  them  clearly  refrained  from  saying  anything 
about  it  because  they  knew  not  what  to  say. 
On  the  one  side  was  the  adverse  decision  of  the 
great  literary  autocrat  of  the  times.  On  the 
other,  they  could  not  fail  to  observe  that  the 
expression  had  been  regularly  used  by  the  best 
writers ;  and  that  even  Dr.  Johnson  himself,  four 
years  after  the  denunciation  of  it  in  his  dic- 
tionary, had  fallen,  during  a  temporar}^  lapse 
into  the  English  idiom,  into  the  employment  of 
it  in  his  Rasselas.  "I  had  rather  hear  thee  than 
dispute,"  says  the  prince  to  Imlac,  in  the  course 
of  that  not  altogether  exciting  narrative.  Men 
of  literary  eminence,  indeed,  were  not  often 
likely  to  display  hostility  towards  a  locution 
which  they  themselves  were  in  the  habit  of  using 
consciously  or  unconsciously.  In  this  matter 
the  practice  of  English  authors  has  been  gen- 
erally much  more  creditable  than  the  attitude 
of  English  scholarship.  The  latter  has  con- 
stantly allowed  ignorant  criticism  of  the  idiom 
to  be  made  without  entering  any  protest.  Men 
have  in  consequence  been  led  to  assume  that 
the  censure  of  it  has  not  been  questioned  because 
it  cannot  be  questioned.  Take  as  an  illustra- 
289 


THE    STANDARD   OF    USAGE 

tion  of  too  frequent  comment  the  remark  of  Mrs. 
Orr,  in  her  Life  of  Robert  Browning.  She  quoted 
a  passage  from  a  letter  of  his  in  which  he  used 
the  expression  "I  had  better  say."  Then  she 
informs  us  that  Mr.  Browning  would  have  been 
very  angry  with  himself  if  he  had  known  that 
he  ever  wrote  I  had  better.  If  he  did  not  know 
that  he  had  written  it,  he  was  inexcusably 
ignorant  of  his  own  poetry.  Assuredly,  if  he 
took  pains  to  make  himself  familiar  with  that, 
he  would  have  been  furnished  with  several  oppor- 
tunities for  being  angry  with  himself  for  using 
both  had  better  and  had  rather. 

It  seems,  indeed,  rarely  to  occur  to  purists 
that  an  expression  which  is  heard  everywhere 
from  the  lips  of  cultivated  men,  which  has  also, 
as  authority  for  its  employment,  the  usage  of  the 
great  writers  of  our  speech,  must  have  justifica- 
tion for  its  existence,  even  if  they  cannot  com- 
prehend what  that  justification  is.  In  such 
cases  we  are  bound  to  accept  on  faith,  even  if 
sight  be  denied.  But  in  this  instance  sight  is 
not  denied.  That  the  idiom  in  question  is  in 
accordance  with  the  requirements  of  the  most 
exacting  syntax  an  analysis  of  any  one  of  the 
three  locutions  specified,  wherever  it  occurs, 
shows  conclusively.  Let  us  take,  for  example, 
the  had  rather  be  of  the  text  from  the  Psalms 
290 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

which  has  been  already  given,  and  subject  to 
examination  each  one  of  its  constituent  parts. 
In  regard  to  the  first  of  these  three  words  two 
things  are  to  be  taken  into  consideration — its 
grammatical  character  and  its  meaning.  At  the 
outset  it  is  to  be  observed  that  had  is  here  not 
an  auxiliary,  but  an  independent  verb.  Further- 
more, it  is  in  the  past  tense  of  the  subjunctive 
mood  and  not  of  the  indicative.  The  use  of  this 
subjunctive  form  has  never  died  out,  though  its 
place  is  usually  taken  by  would  have  or  should 
have.  Yet,  if  in  later  times  its  employment 
has  become  more  restricted,  it  cannot  be  called 
uncommon,  especially  in  conditional  sentences. 
In  the  raising  of  Lazarus  described  in  the  Gospel 
of  John,  both  Mary  and  Martha  are  represented 
as  saying  to  Christ,  "Lord,  if  thou  hadst  been 
here,  my  brother  had  not  died."  **But  for  de- 
lays of  the  press  he  had  had  this  answer  some 
months  ago,"  wrote  the  great  scholar  Bentley. 
So  Byron  represents  the  pirates,  at  the  close  of 
their  song  in  The  Corsair,  when  deploring  the 
fate  of  their  comrades,  as  exclaiming,  while  they 
divide  the  spoil, 

"How  had  the  brave  who  fell  exulted  now!" 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  illustrations.     In  fact, 

the  instances  where  had  is  thus  employed,  though 

291 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

not  common  in  colloquial  speech  like  would  have 
or  should  have,  are  so  frequent  that  its  occurrence 
creates  no  ambiguity  and  causes  no  surprise. 

As  regards  the  meaning  of  the  verb  in  this 
particular  locution,  it  is  to  be  said  that  the 
original  sense  of  the  word  have^  which  is  to  hold 
a  material  thing  in  one's  hands,  underwent  a 
natural  extension  to  holding  a  conception  in 
the  mind.  Hence  it  came  to  mean  'account,' 
'esteem,'  'consider,'  'regard';  to  signify,  in 
fact,  the  idea  which  is  often  expressed  by  the 
word  hold  itself.  In  this  respect  it  has  gone 
through  precisely  the  same  course  of  develop- 
ment as  the  Latin  habere  and  the  corresponding 
verbs  in  various  other  languages.  In  English 
it  remains  no  unfamiliar  usage.  The  phrases 
'had  in  reverence,'  'had  in  contempt' — for  the 
verb  of  which  we  might  substitute  held — are  heard 
not  infrequently,  and  do  not  strike  us  as  at  all  pe- 
culiar. Combining,  therefore,  what  is  implied  by 
the  grammatical  form  and  the  meaning,  the  /  had 
of  I  had  rather  he  can  be  exactly  represented  in 
ordinary  English  by  'I  would  hold,  or  deem.' 

So  much  for  the  first  word;  now  comes  the 
second.  Few  need  to  be  told  that  rather  is  the 
comparative  of  both  the  adverb  rathe,  mean- 
ing *  quickly,'  'early,'  and  the  corresponding 
adjective  rath{e).  The  positive  forms  of  each 
292 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

practically  died  out  long  ago.  When  they  ap- 
pear now,  they  appear  as  archaisms;  indeed, 
Milton's  "rathe  primrose  that  forsaken  dies" 
is  the  one  passage  which  has  made  the  word 
familiar  to  most  modern  ears.  Further,  the 
comparative  rather,  while  common  as  an  ad- 
verb, is  hardly  known  with  us  as  an  adjective. 
It  is,  in  truth,  to  the  particular  idiom  under 
consideration  that  it  is  now  almost  entirely  re- 
stricted. There  is  but  little  difficulty  in  tracing 
the  development  of  meaning  which  took  place. 
Rather  strictly  signifies  'quicker,'  'earlier.'  But 
when  a  man  wishes  to  have  something  more 
speedily  than  something  else,  it  is  generally  safe 
to  say  that  he  has  for  it  a  distinct  preference. 
Accordingly,  the  transition  from  the  sense  of 
'quicker'  into  that  of  'more  desirable,'  'prefer- 
able,' was  both  natural  and  easy.  That  it  was 
actually  made  we  know  outside  of  this  partic- 
ular idiom;  but  here  it  has  found  its  regular 
manifestation.  It  follows  that  I  had  rather  is 
precisely  equivalent  to  *I  would  hold  more 
desirable  (or  preferable).'  An  it  might  be  in- 
serted between  the  verb  and  the  adjective,  to 
denote  the  following  clause;  but  it  is  not  neces- 
sary, and  is  here  omitted,  as  in  several  other  like 
phrases. 
We  come  finally  to  the  last  word,  be.  This  is 
293 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

not  only  an  infinitive,  but  it  is  now  almost  in- 
variably the  pure  infinitive.  Originally,  how- 
ever, it  was  not  such  at  all.  In  the  earlier  period 
the  sign  to  frequently  accompanied  it,  as  it  did 
also  the  infinitive  when  following  had  liefer,  had 
as  lief,  and  had  better.  There  was  a  good  deal  of 
variation  in  the  use  of  this  particle.  When  the 
sentence  contained  two  clauses,  each  with  an 
infinitive  of  its  own,  to  was  sometimes  used  be- 
fore both  verbs.  The  construction  can  be  seen 
in  the  following  lines,  in  modernized  orthog- 
raphy, taken  from  Chaucer  :  * 

"  '  Brother,'  quoth  he,  '  here  woneth'  an  old  rebeck,' 
That  had  almost  as  lief  to  lese*  her  neck 
As  for  to  give  a  penny  of  her  good.'  "  * 

Again,  it  sometimes  preceded  the  infinitive  of 
the  first  clause  and  was  omitted  before  that  of 
the  second.  This  will  be  illustrated  by  another 
quotation  from  Chaucer: 

"  Liefer  I  had  to  dien  on  a  knife 
Than  thee  offendd,  tru^  deare  wife." 

More  frequently  it  was  omitted  before  the  in- 
finitive of  the  first  clause  and  retained  before 
that  of  the  second.  This  mode  is  exemplified  in 
the  text  of  the  Psalms  now  under  examination. 

*  "Friar's  Tale,"  lines   275-277. 

*  Dwells.         3  Crone.         *  To  lose.         •  Property. 

294 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

All  these  methods  of  construction  existed  in 
the  case  of  had  liefer,  had  rather,  and  had  better. 
In  all  of  them  the  tendency  increased  to  drop 
the  to  in  both  clauses.  In  process  of  time  this 
became  the  distinctive  one  as  we  find  it  to-day. 
Still,  any  construction  which  has  behind  it  a 
past  of  good  usage  gives  up  the  ghost  reluctant- 
ly. It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  examples 
of  the  employment  of  to  following  these  phrases 
should  turn  up  occasionally  in  later  literature. 
The  impudence  of  editors,  indeed,  in  substituting 
their  own  crude  notions  of  what  the  author 
ought  to  have  written,  instead  of  what  he  act- 
ually wrote,  often  renders  it  a  task  of  peculiar 
difficulty  to  trace  the  history  of  an  idiom.  This 
is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  "He  had  better  to 
do  so  ten  times,"  wrote  Ben  Jonson,  "than 
suffer  her  to  love  the  well-nosed  poet,  Ovid."^ 
In  the  more  or  less  inaccurate  modern  editions 
of  this  dramatist  the  to  is  quietly  dropped.  A 
resort  to  the  originals  is  absolutely  necessary  if 
we  wish  to  gain  a  trustworthy  knowledge  of 
usage,  and  this  is  often  not  easy  and  some- 
times not  practicable.  Still,  there  is  sufficient 
evidence  to  show  that  while,  in  the  immense 
majority  of  instances,  the  sign  of  the  infinitive 
has  been  discarcled  since  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
^  Poetaster  (fol.  1616  a),  act  iv.,  scene  7. 

ao  295 


THE   STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

teenth  century,  it  has  at  times  put  in  a  belated 
appearance.  This  occurs  even  in  authors  of 
repute.  **  You  had  better  to  have  let  this  part  of 
your  story  sleep  in  peace,"  wrote  Richardson 
in  1754.  In  his  Roman  History,  first  published 
in  1769,  Goldsmith  said  of  Caesar  that  "he  was 
heard  to  say  that  he  had  rather  die  once  by 
treason,  than  to  live  continually  in  apprehension 
of  it."  There  are  other  examples  belonging  to 
the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  that 
could  be  furnished;  but  as  they  come  from 
writers  of  little  repute  and  no  authority,  it  is 
hardly  worth  while  to  burden  the  page  with  quo- 
tations of  them. 

Had  rather  with  the  infinitive  has  been  used 
by  almost  every  writer  of  good  English  since  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  There  is  no 
further  defence  for  its  employment  needed  than 
that  simple  fact.  But  the  analysis  given  here 
of  the  construction  shows  that  its  grammati- 
cal character  is  perfectly  pure.  The  passage  of 
Scripture  with  which  the  description  of  the 
subject  began  can  accordingly  be  paraphrased 
so  as  to  present  clearly  the  exact  nature  of  the 
idiom.  This  done,  it  would  read  as  follows: 
"I  would  hold  (or  deem)  it  more  desirable  (or 
preferable)  to  be  a  doorkeeper  in  the  house  of 
my  God,  than  to  dwell  in  the  tents  of  wicked- 
296 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

ness."  An  explanation  essentially  similar  is 
true  of  any  sentence  in  which  the  archaic  had 
liefer  occurs. 

Would  rather  and  had  rather  are  with  us  inter- 
changeable. But  this  is  not  true  of  ivould  better 
and  had  better.  The  two  idioms  under  consid- 
eration stand  on  an  entirely  different  footing. 
In  the  one  volition  is  the  underlying  idea.  *  He 
had  rather  do  it,'  means  that  he  would  prefer 
to  do  it.  Hence  there  is  no  difficulty  in  sub- 
stituting would  for  had,  for  in  both  cases  the 
meaning  would  be  essentially  the  same.  But 
no  such  easy  interchange  can  take  place  in  the 
case  of  the  other  idiom.  In  had  better  there  is 
implied  not  a  sense  of  mere  choice  or  volition, 
but  one  of  obligation,  or  of  the  compulsion  of 
circumstances.  When  we  say  'he  had  better 
do  so  and  so,'  we  do  not  mean  that  he  may 
prefer  to  do  so  and  so,  but  that  it  is  the  part 
of  wisdom  or  of  duty  for  him  to  do  so  and  so. 
Hence  the  absolute  insufficiency  of  would  in 
place  of  had,  were  there  no  other  objections  to 
its  employment.  There  are  instances  in  which 
might  better  could  be  properly  substituted  for 
had  better;  but  in  most  cases  the  change  would 
be  unsatisfactory.  It  was  probably  the  desire 
for  directness  and  conciseness,  and  perhaps  for 
additional  energy,  which  led  to  the  introduction 
297 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

of  the  established  locution  into  the  speech. 
*  He  had  better  do  it '  once  was  and  still  can  be 
represented  by  the  phrase  *  It  were  {or  would  be) 
better  that  he  should  do  it.'  It  was  hardly  to 
be  expected  that  the  latter  diffuse  locution 
could  hold  its  ground  permanently  against  the 
brevity  and  condensed  energy  of  the  former. 
Still  the  history  of  this  contracted  method  of 
expression  shows  that  while  now  accepted 
everywhere  by  cultivated  men,  it  made  its  way 
but  slowly  into  its  present  wide  employment. 

One  further  observation  remains  to  be  made 
in  connection  with  idioms  of  this  general  nature. 
In  the  three  examples  of  it  which  have  been 
considered,  liefer,  rather,  and  better  are  adjectives. 
This  is  also  true  of  the  superlative  best  in  had 
best,  and  of  the  positives  good  and  lief  in  the  ex- 
pressions had  as  good  and  had  as  lief.  The  last- 
named  locution  maintained  itself  in  usage  after 
had  liefer  had  died  out,  and,  in  colloquial  speech 
at  least,  still  flourishes  as  vigorously  as  it  did 
in  the  days  of  its  youth.  But  in  every  one  of 
these  phrases  the  leading  word  has  seemed  to 
the  popular  apprehension  and  continues  to 
seem  not  an  adjective,  but  an  adverb.  Es- 
pecially is  this  true  of  had  rather,  in  which  the 
positive  rathe  has  never  had  much  more  than 
a  poetic  or  dialectic  existence.  With  such  a 
298 


HAD  RATHER  AND  HAD  BETTER 

feeling  about  these  words  on  the  part  of  the 
users  of  speech,  it  could  be  predicted  with  almost 
absolute  certainty  that  if  there  were  extension 
by  analogy  of  the  employment  of  the  idiom, 
adverbs  would  be  resorted  to  and  not  adjectives. 
The  probable  has  become  the  actual.  In  our 
later  speech  the  locutions  had  sooner,  had  as 
soon,  had  as  well,  have  come  to  play  no  incon- 
spicuous part  in  expression.  They  seem  to 
have  made  their  first  appearance  in  the  speech 
about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
This  inference,  however,  may  be  due  to  the  fact 
that  it  was  then  they  apparently  first  attracted 
the  attention  of  critics.  **If  any  one,"  wrote  a 
reviewer,  "shall  either  in  speaking  or  writing 
use  these  expressions,  /  had  as  gladly  stay,  or 
/  had  sooner  go,  we  should  be  grossly  offended, 
and  should  not  scruple  to  pronounce  them 
barbarous."  This  was  the  sort  of  welcome 
with  which  they  were  then  received.  But  they 
were  condemned  not  because  their  critics  knew 
that  liefer  and  rather  and  better  were  adjectives, 
and  that  gladly  and  sooner  were  adverbs,  but 
becau.se  they  were  both  included  in  the  common 
censure  which  owed  its  existence  to  the  general 
ignorance  that  prevailed  of  the  exact  character 
of  the  earlier  idioms,  according  to  the  analogy 
of  which  the  later  ones  had  been  formed,  Nat- 
299 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 

urally  objections  of  this  sort  did  not  operate 
as  a  restraint  upon  their  employment,  and  they 
have  continued  to  be  found  frequently  in 
literature  up  to  the  present  time.  About  the 
propriety  of  using  these  genuine  adverbs  in  the 
expressions  which  have  been  given  there  may 
be  room  for  grammatical  controversy,  but  in 
the  case  of  the  adjectives  there  is  none  at  all. 


INDEX    OF    WORDS    AND    PHRASES 


adduce,  v.,  32. 

again,  'agin,'  prep.,  31,  72, 

73- 
againes,  I 

against,  P^'  '  '  '•^• 
agriculturist,  n.,  37. 
allude,  z;.,  158,  159. 
along,    alongst,    prep.,    72, 

73- 
ambassador,  n.,  11. 
amid,      amiddes,      amidst, 

prep.,  72,  73,  106,  108. 
among,  amonges,  amongst, 

prep.,  72,  73. 
ancient,  a.,  75. 
anecdote,  n.,  153. 
approval,  n.,  37. 
astound,  i*.,  74. 
authoress,  n.,  229. 
available,  a.,  197. 
averse  from,  averse  to,  44, 

45- 
avocation,  n.,  158,  159. 
avoidless,  a.,  209. 

bamboozle,  v.,   12. 
bashless,  a.,  209. 
battalions,  n.,  11, 
belighted,  ^./?.,  47. 
better,  a.,  298,  299, 
better,  me  were,  274. 
better,  she  were,  275. 


bereaven,  p.p.,  64. 
bid,  v.,  247. 
bitten,  bit,  p.p.,  61. 
black,  a.,  n.,  and  v.,  201. 
bom,  p.p.,  61, 
bower,  n.,  45. 
bridal,  n.,  155. 
bridegroom,  bridegoom,  «,, 

76,  77- 
bugle,  w.,  154. 
burgle,  v.,  198, 

candidate,  w.,  155. 
canopy,  n.,  154. 
capture,  v.,  35,  36. 
chid,  chidden,  p.p.,  63,  64, 
circumstances,   under  the, 

44. 
circumvallation,  w.,  11. 
close  the  door,  32. 
committal,  «.,  37. 
communications,  n.,  11. 
communion,  v.,  202. 
cormorant,  w.,  75. 
coude,  could,  v.,  78. 
country  put,  12. 
cnmi,  crumb,  n.,  75. 
crumlDle,  z;,,  75. 

dare,  v.,  247. 
dauntless,  a.,   207. 
December,  n.,  152. 


301 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 


delite,  delight,  n.,  77. 
description,  n.,  36. 
desiderate,  v.,  35. 
differ  with,   118. 
donate,  v.,  194. 
donation,  n.,  194. 
drown,  drownd,  drownded, 

v.,  68-71. 
drunken,  p.p.,  61. 

eat,  eaten,  p.p.,  61. 
enthuse,  v.,  198. 
eremite,  n.,  76. 
examine  into,  44. 
execute,  v.,  43,  149. 
execution,  n.,  149. 
executioner,  n.,  149,  150. 
existence,  n.,  35. 
expressless,  a.,  209. 

fadeless,  a.,  209. 

fallen,  p.p.,  61. 

feel,  v.,  36,  247. 

female,  n.,  212-239. 

femality,  n.,  222. 

feminine,  a.,  235. 

few,  a,  24. 

first    two,    the;     the    two 

first,   125-134,  144- 
firstly,  adv.,  11 6-1 18,    119. 
foren,  foreign,  a.,   77. 
forenoon,  n.,  28. 
future,  for  the;    in  future, 

37. 

gather,  v.,  44. 
gent,  n.,  65,  67. 
ghost,  n.,  76. 
given,  :^.^.,  61. 
got,  gotten,  p.p.,  61. 
greed,  n.,  199, 


had,  t;.  subjunctive,  291. 
had  as  gladly,  299. 


had  as  good,  298. 

had  as  lief,  294,  298. 

had  as  soon,  299. 

had  as  well,  299. 

had  best,  298. 

had  better,  150,  269,  272, 

274,  280,  283,  290,  294, 

295,  297. 
had  better  to,  294,  296. 
had  liefer,    271,    272,    273, 

274,  281,  282,  283. 
had  liefer  to,  294,  295. 
had  lieferer,  277. 
had  rather,  271,  273,  274, 

281-289,   293. 
had  rather  be,  290-293. 
had  rather  to,  294-296. 
harbor,  n.,  155. 
harvest,  n.,  31. 
have  rather,  285. 
hear,  v.,  247. 
hector,  v.,  155. 
help,  v.,  247. 
here,  adv.,  32. 
hermit,  n.,  75, 
hid,  hidden,  p.p.,  63. 
hither,  adv.,  32. 
holden,  p.p.,  62. 
hostage,  n.,  75. 
hostler,  n.,  155. 
hyp,  n.,  II. 

idiot,  n.,  155. 
illy,  adv.,  ti6. 
impregnable,  a.,  76. 
incog,  a.,  11. 
indispensable,  a.,  197. 
ingurgitate,  v.,  35. 
inimical,  a.,  36. 
island,  n.,  46. 

jaundice,  n.,  76. 
journal,  n.,  153. 


302 


INDEX    OF    WORDS    AND    PHRASES 


kidney,  n.,  12. 
kindred,  n.,  176. 
king,  n.,   iii. 
knave,  n.,  154. 
known,  n.,  61. 

laughable,  a.,   197. 

lay,  v.,  31,  137-141. 

learn,  v.,  31. 

lend,  lene,  v.,  70,  203. 

length,  at,  165. 

less,  suffix,  200-210.  {See 
avoidless,  bashless, 
dauntless,  expressless, 
fadeless,  moveless,  op- 
poseless,  quenchless,  re- 
lentless, resistless,  shrive- 
less,  utterless,  weariless.) 

let,  v.,   247. 

levee,  n.,  155. 

lewd,  a.,  154. 

lie,  v.,  31,  137-141. 

lief,  a.,  273. 

liefer,  a.,  298,  299. 

liefer,  me  were,  272, 

limb,  n.,  74,  75. 

line  of  conduct,  36. 

litten,  p.p.,  64. 

loan,  v.,  203-205. 

make,  v.,   247. 
make  up  one's  mind,  37. 
male,  n.,  234. 
maltreat,  v.,  27. 
manoeuvre,  v.,  154. 
manufacture,  n.,  153. 
manure,  n.,  154. 
manuscript,  n.,  154. 
marshal,  n.,  155. 
matinee,  n.,  155. 
meet,  i'.,  36. 
messenger,  n.,  176. 
might  better,   297. 
militate,  v.,  32. 


mob,  mobb,  n.,  11,  12,  17, 

65-67. 
mobile,  n.,  65-67. 
moveless,  a.,  209. 
mutual  friend,  iii,  144. 

narrate,  v.,  32,  195. 
nature,  n.,  212, 
net  a  cool  thousand,  37. 
nightingale,  76. 
noon,  n.,  155. 
notice,  v.,  32,   189. 
notice  of,  to  take,  189. 
novel,  a.,  35. 
numb,  a.,  74,  75. 

occupy,  v.,  210. 
once,  ones,  adv.,  74. 
operations,  n.,  11. 
opposeless,  a.,  209. 
orthography,  w.,  44. 

pagan,  n.,  155. 
palisadoes,  n.,  11. 
pants,  n.,  65,  67. 
passenger,  n.,  76. 
paven,  p.p.,  64. 
pheasant,  w.,  75. 
phiz,  w.,  II. 
pirate,  w.,  155. 
place  of,  in,  32. 
plenipo,  n.,  11. 
poz,  a.,  II. 
preliminaries,  n.,  11. 
prove,  go  to,  36. 
proven,  p.p.,  62-64. 
pugilist,  n.,  37. 

quenchless,  a.,  208. 

rathe,  a.,  292,  293. 
rather,   a.,    292,    293,    298, 

299. 
reckon,  I,  32. 


303 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 


reform,  n.,  T,y. 
relentless,  a.,  208 
reliable,  a.,  196. 
rep,  n.,  11. 
resistless,  a.,  207. 
restrict,  v.,  32. 
resurrect,  v.,  198. 
resurrectionist, 


resurrection -man,  f  '^' 
riches,  n.,  155,  156. 
risen,  p.p.,  61. 


198 


scarce,  scarcely,  adv.,  106, 

108. 
scouted  the  idea,  37. 
see,  v.,  247,  248. 
seed,  V.  preL,  31. 
set,  v.,   142. 
sit,  v.,  142. 
sitten,  p.p.,  13. 
some,  a.,   113. 
some,  adv.,  114, 
soun,  sound,  v.,  70. 
sovran,  sovereign,  n.,  77. 
speculations,  n.,  11. 
sprung,  sprungen,  p.p.,  61. 
stamina,  w.,  156. 
stonden,  p.p.,  62. 
store  by,  set  no,  36. 
sung,  sungen,  p.p.,  61, 

taken,  p.p.,  6r. 
thrive,  v.,  145. 


thriveless,  a.,  208. 
thum,  thumb,  w.,  75. 
thunder,   n.,   76. 
tireless,  a.,  200,  206. 
torn,  ;p./'.,  61. 
truism,  n.,  37. 
two  first,  125-134,  144. 
tyrant,  n.,  61. 

usher,  n.,  155. 
utterless,  a.,  208. 

vagrant,   n.,   77. 
vocation,  158,  159. 
voice,  v.,  200. 

weariful,  a.,  209. 
weariless,   a.,   209. 
wend  one's  way,  85. 
while,    whiles,    whilst,    46, 

73.  74. 
whose,  ^r.,  106,  109. 
will  rather,  285. 
womanly,  a.,  235. 
wonst,  wunst,  adv.,  74. 
would    better,     150,     269, 

279,    297. 
would    rather,     278,     279, 

281,   288,   297. 

ye,  you,  pr.,  59. 


GENERAL    INDEX 


Abbreviation  of  words, 
II,  14,  65. 

Academies,  belief  in,  19; 
its  fallacy,  20. 

Academy,  an  English : 
early  efforts  to  estab- 
lish, 18;  lack  of,  de- 
plored, 49;  Dr.  Johnson 
on,  21-23;  Lord  Orrery 
on,  23 ;  Warburton  on,  20. 

Academy,  French,  18,  19, 
20,  22. 

Academy,  Italian,  22. 

Addison,  Joseph,  24,  30, 
33'  34.  37.  66,  67,  183, 
187. 

Adverbs,  between  to  and 
the  infinitive,  265  ff. 

Amadas,  Sir,  176. 

Americanisms,  26,  125,  194, 
197.  198. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  186,  255. 

Austen,  Jane,  112,  185, 
229,   230,  231,  277. 

Authors,  correctness  of 
great,  1 01 -105;  errors 
in,  136-142. 

Back-formations,    198- 

200. 
Bacon,  Francis,  8,  24,  138, 

161,  182,  187. 


Bailey,  Nathan,  284. 

Barlow,  Joel,  205. 

Barton,  Bernard,  209. 

Beattie,  James,  25,  50,  51, 
56,  139;  anxiety  about 
English    language,     29- 

37. 
Bentley,     Richard,     6,     9, 

149,  254. 

Bemers,    John    Bourchier, 

Lord,  254. 
Bolingbroke,     Henry     St. 

John,  Viscount,  24. 
Boswell,  James,  28. 
Bowdler,  Miss,  34,  50. 
Bronte,  Charlotte,   119. 
Broome,  William,  131. 
Brown,  Goold,  180,  181. 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  254. 
Browning,      Robert,      112, 

150,  151,  161,  186,  187, 
209,  280,  290;  inserts 
adverbs  between  to  and 
the  infinitive,  260-263. 

Browning,   Mrs.   Elizabeth 

Barrett,  231. 
Bulwer,     Edward     George 

(Lord  Lytton),  64,  226. 
Bunyan,  John,  68. 
Burke,  Edmund,  125,  132, 

184,    254. 
Bums,  Robert,  255. 


305 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 


.J 


Byron,  George  Gordon, 
Lord,  47,  112,  126,  137, 
185,  255,  265,  291. 

Canning,  George,  133. 
Carlyle,     Thomas,     32     n., 
Ill,  120,  185,  237,  256, 

255- 

Chalmers,  George,  48. 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  55,  70, 
73,  272,  294. 

Cicero,   loi. 

Claudian,  150. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor, 
185,  196,  209,  218,  255. 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore, 
226. 

Corruptions  of  speech,  so- 
called,  57-59,  245,  252; 
in  forms  of  nouns,  155; 
in  meaning  of  words, 
158;  in  pronouns,  59; 
in  verb-system,  60. 

Cottle,  Amos,  209. 

Coventry  Mysteries,  176, 

Cowper,  William,  184. 

Crabbe,  George,  184. 

Critical  Review,  133. 

Croker,  John   Wilson,  in. 

Cumberland,  Richard,  139. 

Daniel,  Samuel,  64. 
D'Arblay,  Frances  Bumey, 

Madame,  220,  221,  239, 

263. 
De  Foe,  Daniel,  131. 
De  Quincey,  Thomas,  117, 

119,  164,  196,  255. 
Derivation,   fallacy   of,    as 

guide   to   meaning,    43- 

46,  151-155.  157- 
Dickens,  Charles,  87,   119, 

185,  198,  226, 


Dyche's,  284;  Dr  John- 
son's, 41 ;  New  Historical, 
130,      220;      Sheridan's, 

.285-  . 
Disraeli,    Benjamin,    Lord 

Beaconsfield,    112,    186, 

209,   227,  278. 
Donne,  John,  254. 
Douce,  Francis,  174. 
Dryden,    John,    8,    18,    50, 

55,  143,  183,  208. 
Dyche,  Thomas,  284. 

Edinburgh  Review,  117. 

Eliot,  George  (Mary  Ann 
Cross).  81. 

Eliot,  Sir  John,  81. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo, 
186. 

English,  assumed  degener- 
acy of,  by  Beattie,  29-37, 
50;  by  Miss  Bowdler,  34; 
by  Landor,  38;  by  Lord 
Orrery,  23-25;  by  Qtmr- 
terly  Remew,48 ;  by  Swift, 
10-15;  denied  by  Dry- 
den :  attributed  to  poets 
and  theatrical  writers, 
14,  51;  to  political 
pamphleteers  and  essay- 
ists, 33,  51;  to  news- 
papers, 51-53;  arising 
from  abbreviations,  n, 
66;  from  vulgarisms,  12, 
68-74. 

English,  limiting  vocabu- 
lary of,  8 ;  enlarging  vo- 
cabulary of,  54. 

Eustathius,  131. 

Fielding,  Henry,  116, 
139,  183,  217,  223,  225, 
266,   276. 


Dictionary,    Bailey's,    284;  [Fixing    the    English    lan- 
306 


GENERAL    INDEX 


guage,    Bentley    on,     6; 
Johnson  on,    7;    Landor 
on,  39;  Swift  on,  10,  13. 
Fletcher,   John,    183,    216, 

275. 
Forster,   John,    81,    148. 
Fortescue,  Sir  John,  254. 
Fox,  Charles  James,  67. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  255. 
Froude,    James    Anthony, 

186. 
Future    tense,    origin    of, 

169;  distinction  between 

shall  and  will,  1 71-174. 

George  III.,  29. 

Gibbon,    Edward,    49,    63, 

131,  132,  184,  202. 
Gladstone,  William  Ewart, 

120,   197. 
Goldsmith,     Oliver,      143, 

184,  213,  255,  296. 
Gray,    Thomas,    143,    183, 

207. 
Grammar,  changes  in,  246; 

universal,  91-94. 
Grammars,  effect  of,  upon 

language,     81,    83,    148; 

character    of,     83,     147; 

never  final  authority,  83, 

147,  243;  often  untrust- 
worthy, 122. 

Hall,  Fitzedward,  85, 
251,  271. 

Hampden,  John,  81, 

Hampole,  Richard  RoUe 
de,  176. 

Hare,  Julius  Charles  (Arch- 
deacon), 41. 

Hebrew,  considered  the 
original  speech,  6. 

Holland,  Henry  Richard 
Vassall,  Lord,  266. 


Holmes,    Oliver    Wendell, 

205,  265,  277. 
Hooker,  Richard,  8. 
Horace,  88,  89,  90,  96,  99. 
Hume,  David,  26,  30,  184. 
Humphrey,  David,  204. 

Inchbald,  Mrs.  Eliza- 
beth,   224. 

Infinitive,  genindial,  247, 
248;  prepositional,  247, 
248;  pure,  247,  249. 

Irishisms,  26,  125. 

Irving,  Washington,  116, 
139,   185,  227. 

James  I.,  135. 

James,  Henry,  81. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  7,  8, 
9,  21-23,  28,  29,  41,  49, 
123,  132,  143.  184,  208, 
254,   258,   284,   289. 

Jonson,  Ben,  89,  182,  212, 
215.   295. 

Keats,    John,    208,    255, 

258. 
Kemble,     Frances     Anne, 

230,  231. 
Kingsley,  Charles,  119 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  64,  120. 

Lamb,  Charles,  209,  218, 

219,  254. 
Landor,    Walter     Savage, 

38-47,  50,  56,  58,  117, 
119,  148-151,  280,  287; 
emendations  of  Shake- 
speare, 146;  orthographic 
views  of,  38,  46. 

Lang,  Andrew,  240-243, 
254- 

Laughton,  John  Knox,  118. 

Layamon,  189. 


307 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 


Letters,  added,  to  begin- 
ning of  words,  75 ;  to  end 
of,  74;  inserted  in,  76-78. 

Literature,  influence  of 
upon  language,  55,  282. 

Locker-Lampson,  Freder- 
ick, 197. 

Lockhart,  John  Gibson, 
106,  107. 

Lord's  prayer,  assumed  un- 
grammatical  character 
of,  25. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  64, 
210,  255. 

Lowth,  Robert,  40,  285- 
287. 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Bab- 
iNGTON,  Lord,  III,  143, 
185,  188,  255,  258,  266. 

Malone,  Edmimd,  174. 

Marsh,  George  Perkins, 
142. 

Mason,  William,  139. 

Massinger,  Philip,  216. 

Matthews,  Albert,  255. 

Milton,  John,  24,  64,  123, 
i30t  143.  161,  183,  187, 
207. 

Monosyllables  in  English, 
II. 

Montagu,   Mrs.    Elizabeth, 

139. 
Montagu,       Lady       Mary 

Wortley,   119. 
Monthly  Review,  132. 
Moore,  Thomas,   67,    124- 

128. 
Motley,  John  Lothrop,  238. 
Murray,  Lindley,  179,  180, 

181. 

Newman,  John  Henry 
(Cardinal),  255. 


Orr, Mrs. Sutherland,  290. 
Orrery,    John    Boyle,    earl 

of,  23-25. 
Ossian,  139, 
Ovid,  295. 
Oxford,     Robert     Harley, 

Earl  of,  13,  16,  39. 

Passive  voice,  followed  by 

object,  175-192. 
Paston  Letters,    176. 
Participle,  past,  of  strong 

conjugation,  61 ;  of  weak 

conjugation,   62. 
Pecock,  Reginald,  254. 
Pedantry,   effect   of,   upon 

language,  163  ff. 
Peele,  George,  208. 
Pepys,  Samuel,  139,  254. 
Pope,  Alexander,   55,   131, 

143,  162,  183,  207,  208, 
Present    tense    for   future, 

167-171. 

Quarterly    Review,    48, 

107,  ,195- 
Quintilian,  89,  130,  141. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  8, 

208. 
Reade,   Charles,   228,   254. 
Reed,  Isaac,  174. 
Reeve,  Henry,  117. 
Richardson,   Samuel,    183, 

217,  222,  296. 
Richelieu,       Armand      du 

Plessis  (Cardinal),  20. 
Robertson,  William,  27. 
Roscommon,   Wentworth 

Dillon,  Earl  of,  18. 
Ruskin,  John,  186,  254. 


Scott,    Sir    Walter,    17, 
119,  139,  185,  207,  220; 


308 


GENERAL    INDEX 


on  verbal  criticism,  105- 
108. 

Scotticisms,  26-28,  33,  125, 
195,199;  Beattie's  trea- 
tise on,  31 ;  Sir  John  Sin- 
clair's on,   199. 

Shadwell,  Thomas,   66. 

Shakespeare,  William,  8, 
47,  143,  161,  174,  182, 
187,  202,  207,  208,  210, 
211,  215,  275. 

Sheffield,  John  Baker  Hol- 
royd,  baron,  63. 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brins- 
ley,  188. 

Sheridan,  Thomas,  285. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  8,  209. 

Sinclair,  Sir  John,   199. 

Smollett,  Tobias,  184,  217, 
223. 

Southey,  Robert,  40,   116, 

185,  255. 
Spectator,  The,  29. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  64,  254. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  8,  182, 

187. 
Stanley,  Arthur   Penrhyn, 

197. 
Statius,  50. 
Steele,    Sir    Richard,     24, 

183,  216,  222. 
Stephen   Leslie,    254. 
Sterne,  Laurence,  140. 
Stevenson,    Robert    Louis, 

186,  210. 

Story,  William  Wetmore,  81 . 
Swift,    Jonathan,     10,    12, 

15,    17,    21,    23,    24,    33. 

35,    37»    50,    51,    55.    56, 

65,  66,  183. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord, 
64,  143,  186,  187,  231, 
260,  273. 


Thacher,  Thomas  Anthony, 

173- 

Thackeray,  William  Make- 
peace, 64,  119,  186,  227, 
276. 

Tooke,  John  Home,  40, 
41. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  119, 
140,  227. 

Tyndale,  William,  254. 

Usage,  the  standard  of 
speech :  authority  for, 
88-91,  loi;  based  upon 
practice  of  great  writers, 
1 09 ;  something  to  be  as- 
certained, 98;  difficulty 
of  ascertaining  it,  122, 
124,  145;  dictum  of  Hor- 
ace about,  88,  99;  of 
Quintilian,  89;  of  Ben 
Jonson,  89;  by  some 
based  upon  reason,  94- 
96;  by  some  upon  uni- 
versal  grammar,   91-94; 

Verbal  criticism,  con- 
tempt of,  by  great  writ- 
ers, 105-109. 

Verbs,  strong  and  weak, 
conjugation  of,  145 ;  with 
the  suffix  7^55,  200,  205- 
210. 

Virgil,  50. 

Warburton,  William,  20. 
Webster,     Noah,     70,     71, 

179,  181,  288. 
Wensleydale,  Lord,  118. 
White,  Richard  Grant,  94, 

203. 
Whitney,  William  Dwight, 

147,  157- 
WoUstonecraft,  Mary,  224. 


309 


THE    STANDARD    OF    USAGE 


Worcester,  Joseph  Emer- 
son, 288. 

Words,  hostility  to  particu- 
lar words,  113;  new,  at- 
tacked,    56;     transition 


from  one  part  of  speech 
to  another,    201-203. 

Wordsworth,  William,  i  43, 
164,  254. 

Wycliffe,  John,  215,  253. 


THE    END 


15  4  3  0  6 


y.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


CD3SbM612t. 


